We have the pleasure to host the next Infinite Horizons’ seminar on November 22nd, 2023. Our host will be Prof. Wei Cui from the Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University. Professor Cui will talk about X-ray Tomography of Hidden Matter in the Universe.
Seminar’s abstract:
Over the past six decades, X-ray astronomy has evolved from a field that relied on sounding rockets, which are reminiscent of the World War II, to one that is built upon satellites, which are ubiquitous in this day and age. Consequently, the duration of observations has gone from minutes to days or longer, facilitating the study of increasingly weaker sources. As detector technologies advanced, observing capabilities have reached unprecedented heights, particularly in terms of imaging and timing resolution, propelling the field to become a fully-fledged astronomy discipline. How the field progresses over the next 60 years or longer is anyone’s guess, but lessons from optical astronomy seem to suggest that the technique of X-ray tomography is likely to be featured prominently, as the evolution of galaxy ecosystems and large-scale structures comes into focus. Prof. Wei Cui will briefly review the development of X-ray astronomy, setting the stage for discussion of future progress. In particular, he will describe the technologies required for realizing X-ray tomography.
Link Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5138051181
Meeting ID: 513 805 1181
(Our Infinite Horizons seminars are always host on the third Wednesday of the month)
About the speaker:
Wei Cui is a professor in the Department of Astronomy at Tsinghua University (in China) and American Physical Society Fellow. He obtained his PhD degree in physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994, and then joined MIT as a Research Scientist in the same year, to work on the construction and operation of the All-Sky Monitor (ASM) on the RXTE satellite and carry out research on compact objects based on RXTE observations. In 2000, he joined the faculty of the Department of Physics at Purdue University, and became a full professor in 2009. He participated in the construction and operation of VERITAS, a state-of-the-art TeV gamma-ray observatory, and focused his scientific research on cosmic particle accelerators. In 2016, he accepted a joint appointment with Tsinghua University as Professor of Physics, and then joined the university fully in 2018 as a professor in the newly-formed Department of Astronomy. He is the PI of the proposed Hot Universe Baryon Surveyor (HUBS) mission. His present research interests lie mainly in instrumentation for astronomical applications and galaxy ecosystems.
