Previous Biermann Lectures

By Prof. Dr. Amina Helmi (Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Groningen). more

By Prof. Victoria Kaspi, McGill University in Montréal, Canada more

By Prof. Laurent Gizon, Director at the MPI for Solar System Research, Göttingen more

By Professor Anatoly Spitkovsky, Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University more

By Professor Alice Shapley, UCLA, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy more

Gravitational waves have become a very hot topic in astrophysics since their detection by LIGO in 2015. This means that also possible precursors are in the focus of research – general relativistic research because these objects are either black holes or neutron stars. The 2017 Biermann Lecturer, Masaru Shibata from the Kyoto University, uses numerical simulations and general relativity (or numerical relativity for short) to study the merger of such extreme objects and the properties of both the electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves emitted during these events. more

Black holes are fascinating – even though or especially because they cannot be seen; nothing, not even light, can escape their gravitational pull. Nevertheless their immediate surroundings are very interesting laboratories to study high-energy and relativistic processes in space. Astrophysical phenomena such as gas dynamics, magneto-hydrodynamics, and radiative transfer in a broad range of astrophysical phenomena will be the topic of this year’s Biermann Lectures by Mitchell Begelman from the University of Colorado. more

In this year’s Biermann Lectures Professor Isabelle Baraffe from the University of Exeter will talk about exoplanet modelling. The different aspects touched on in the course of the miniseries will range from an exoplanet’s interior structure to its outer atmosphere. more