Yale Astronomy Colloquium - Catherine Zucker

Event time: 
Thursday, September 17, 2026 - 2:30pm
Speaker: 
Catherine Zucker
Speaker Institution: 
The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Talk Title: 
The Galactic Baryon Cycle in High Definition
Event description: 

The galactic baryon cycle describes how gas flows into, through, and out of galaxies, and how it is continuously reprocessed into a rich multi-phase medium shaped by the interplay of star formation, feedback, and galactic dynamics. In this talk, I will show how new large, multi-wavelength datasets allow us to assemble a new high-definition, 3D motion picture of the baryon cycle in the solar neighborhood, while setting that picture in context against the Local Group and the local Universe. I will describe how we reconstruct the 3D spatial distribution of the local interstellar medium within 1 kpc, constrain the fountain flows that cycle gas between the disk and lower halo, and disentangle how this gas both forms stars and is shaped by photoionization from massive stars and the core-collapse supernovae that follow. I will conclude by previewing what lies ahead for probing the baryon cycle beyond the solar neighborhood, using a new survey of the Galactic plane with the Roman Space Telescope.

Location: 
Kline Tower, Room 205 See map
219 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511