Events

IPAC organizes and hosts a number of meetings and conferences.

IPAC hosts seminars every Wednesday from 12-1pm in IPAC's Large Conference Room (102) except where noted.  Directions can be found on the visitor information page.  Pizza and soda are available for purchase at a modest fee. Some weeks, the Time Domain Forum talk (which is not a lunch talk) is held on Thursday afternoons at 2:30 pm.

To receive seminar notification emails, you may sign up here. If you are interested in presenting a talk or seminar, please contact Peter Capak (Extragalactic), or Stephen Kane (Galactic/Solar System/Exoplanets). To present at the Time Domain Forum, contact Luisa Rebull.

Here is a partial list of astronomy-related talks in Pasadena:

Special Note: For more astronomy related talks around Pasadena, check the following list maintained by IPAC scientist Solange Ramirez.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Natalie Hinkel (NExScI) : The Hypatia Catalog - Stellar Abundances in the Solar Neighborhood Science Talk Sep 26th, 2012 12:00 pm MR LCR

I have compiled spectroscopic abundance determinations for 46 elements across 2836 stars within 150 pc of the Sun from 50 literature sources to produce the Hypatia Catalog. The goal of the Hypatia Catalog is to examine nearby stars and regions in the solar neighborhood for chemical abundance trends which may provide additional information, for example, in the search for exoplanets. I find that the element abundance maps of Hypatia stars suggest [1] stars in the solar neighborhood are consistent with solar abundances, [2] the evolutionary history of each element is consistent with mean chemical evolution models, [3] there are no significant statistical correlations in the abundances with respect to position, radial distance, or velocity - suggesting the solar neighborhood is well mixed. For the 215 confirmed exoplanet hosts found within the Hypatia Catalog, I find that exoplanet hosts are enriched in [Fe/H] as compared to non-hosts, per the Planet-Metallicity Correlation. However, this trend does not hold for any of the other elements found within the catalog. There also appears to be higher average abundance of bio-essential elements (C, N, O, Mg, Si, and S) in smaller stellar masses (M less than 1.0 M_Sun) and in stars hosting multiple planets.

Events in September 2012

Thomas Beatty (OSU) : First Detections from the KELT-North Transit Survey Science Talk Sep 5th, 2012 12:00 pm MR LCR
NHSC Herschel Data Processing Workshop Workshop Sep 10th — 14th, 2012