Related papers: Latest Developments and Opportunities in Sky Surve…
Astrophysics lies at the crossroads of big datasets (such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and Gaia), open source software to visualize and interpret high dimensional datasets (such as Glue, WorldWide Telescope, and OpenSpace), and…
The past few years have seen several breakthroughs in particle astrophysics and cosmology. In several cases, new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. In this talk I summarize some of these…
A timely combination of new theoretical ideas and observational discoveries has brought about significant advances in our understanding of cosmic evolution. Computer simulations have played a key role in these developments by providing the…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is making a multi-colour, three dimensional map of the nearby Universe. The survey is in two parts. The first part is imaging one quarter of the sky in five colours from the near ultraviolet to the near…
There is a growing appreciation that the environmental conditions that we call space weather impact the technological infrastructure that powers the coupled economies around the world. With that comes the need to better shield society…
The fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics are technology limited, where the advent and application of new technologies to astronomy usher in a flood of discoveries altering our understanding of the Universe (e.g., recent cases include LIGO…
In recent decades, astronomy and astrophysics have experienced several fundamental changes. On one hand, there has been a significant increase in the observation of transient phenomena, which are short-lived events such as supernova…
We review cosmological inference from galaxy surveys at low and high redshifts, with emphasis on new Southern sky surveys. We focus on several issues: (i) The importance of understanding selection effects in catalogues and matching Northern…
This Astro-2020 White Paper deals with what we might learn from future gravitational wave observations about the early universe phase transitions and their energy scales, primordial black holes, Hubble parameter, dark matter and dark…
Astrophysical compact objects, viz., white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, are the remnants of stellar deaths at the end of their life cycles. They are ideal testbeds for various fundamental physical processes under extreme…
An emerging theme in modern astrophysics is the connection between astronomical observations and the underlying physical phenomena that drive our cosmos. Both the mechanisms responsible for the observed astrophysical phenomena and the tools…
Modern astronomy has been rapidly increasing our ability to see deeper into the universe, acquiring enormous samples of cosmic populations. Gaining astrophysical insights from these datasets requires a wide range of sophisticated…
I summarize the current spectroscopic sky surveys and some of the scientific results, emphasizing the largest sky survey to-date, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Techniques used commonly in spectral analyses are discussed, followed by…
The study of galaxies has changed dramatically over the past few decades with the advent of large-scale astronomical surveys. These large collaborative efforts have made available high-quality imaging and spectroscopy of hundreds of…
The discovery of cosmic acceleration is one of the most important developments in modern cosmology. The observation, thirteen years ago, that type Ia supernovae appear dimmer that they would have been in a decelerating universe followed by…
All sciences, including astronomy, are now entering the era of information abundance. The exponentially increasing volume and complexity of modern data sets promises to transform the scientific practice, but also poses a number of common…
We summarize the comet science provided by surveys. This includes surveys where the detections of comets are an advantageous benefit but were not part of the survey\'s original intent, as well as some pointed surveys where comet science was…
In the last three decades, about 50 radio supernovae have been detected as a result of targeted searches of optically discovered supernovae in the local universe. Despite this relatively small number some diversity among them has already…
Microlensing is a mature and established tool of research over a broad range of astrophysical issues, from dark matter searches to the detection of new extrasolar planets of very low mass, down to Earth-size. This volume collects the…
In this paper we review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating Universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards…