This lecture is open to all and recommended for adults and students above 9th grade.

Title: The Cosmic Mystery of Fast Radio Bursts

Speaker: Dr. Navin Sridhar (KIPAC/Stanford)

Abstract: The cosmos directly interacts with Earth through various signals in the form of electromagnetic waves (light), elementary particles, and gravitational waves. A couple of decades ago, radio astronomers found extremely bright flashes in their data that only lasted a few thousandths of a second. These pulses, named Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), were found to be coming from outside of our Galaxy and can be so energetic that they radiate a billion times more energy than our Sun does within a millisecond. While more than 20,000 bursts have been detected on Earth since FRBs were first discovered, their origins still remain a mystery. In this talk, I will present a brief history of FRBs, introduce how they have altered our understanding of our Universe, and explore some theories on the cosmic sources that could be powering them. I will also discuss how I build theoretical models and use computational tools to interpret the observed properties, and infer the mysterious nature of FRBs in my own research.

Live stream URL can be found at the bottom of the EventBrite registration confirmation email.