Astronomy Journal Club

On Wednesday mornings, once a fortnight, we meet at 11:30 (unless otherwise stated) for a journal club. The location for each meeting will be announced beforehand.

Attendees bring interesting papers, and a brief introduction is given to the Journal Club. Each paper presentation is then followed by discussion. The entire event should take one hour. The papers could be anything published in the last year in astrophysics, related science and relevant to astronomy.

We encourage MSSL astronomers and astrophysicists to come to Journal Club for a discussion on recent research. Please contact Ellis Owen with suggested papers, or for other JC queries. Links to suggested and discussed papers will be added below.

Calendar 2016
Date	Title
13 Jan Common Room	Gravitational-wave rumours in overdrive: Nature article Alien life could thrive in ancient star clusters: Nature article Largest ever 'age map' traces galactic history: BBC article Observing Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays with Smartphones (Whiteson et al, 2015, arxiv:1410.2895) SA self-consistent analytical magnetar model: The luminosity of Gamma-ray burst supernovae is powered by radioactivity (Cano et al. 2016, MNRAS, arxiv:1601.02610) Half of the Most Luminous Quasars May Be Obscured: Investigating the Nature of WISE-Selected Hot Dust-Obscured Galaxies (Assef et al, 2015, ApJ, arxiv:1408.1092) NuSTAR and XMM-Newton Observations of Luminous, Heavily Obscured, WISE-Selected Quasars at z ~ 2 (Stern et al. 2014, ApJ submitted, arxiv:1403.3078)
27 Jan Library	Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet: NASA article Green pea galaxies may have been responsible for re-ionizing the Universe: Galaxy Zoo blog post When the Milky Way turned-off the lights: APOGEE provides evidence of star formation "quenching" in our Galaxy (Haywood et al, 2016, A&A, arxiv:1601.03042) *Non-parametric analysis of the rest-frame UV sizes and morphological disturbance amongst L galaxies at redshift 4 to 8 (Curtis-Lake et al, 2016, MNRAS, arxiv:1409.1832) Dark matter subhalos and unidentified sources in the Fermi 3FGL source catalog** (Schoonenberg et al, 2016, JCAP submitted, arxiv:1601.06781)
10 Feb Common Room	Beer microbes live 553 days outside ISS: BBC article Scientists to provide update on the search for gravitational waves: LIGO Media Advisory Scientists discover hidden galaxies behind the Milky Way: ICRAR article The Parkes HI Zone of Avoidance Survey (Staveley-Smith et al, 2016, Astronomical Journal, arxiv:1602.02922) Low-Mach-number turbulence in interstellar gas revealed by radio polarization gradients (Gaensler, 2011, Nature, Nature paper) The off-centered seyfert-like compact emission in the nuclear region of NGC 3621 (Menezes et al, 2016, arxiv:1602.02287)
24 Feb Stable Block Common Room	Large space rock burns up over Atlantic: BBC article Sir Richard Branson unveils new Virgin Galactic Spaceship: BBC article Test Cubes Floating Freely Inside LISA Pathfinder: ESA article New clues in the hunt for the sources of cosmic neutrinos: Science Daily article The feeble giant. Discovery of a large and diffuse Milky Way dwarf galaxy in the constellation of Crater (Torrealba et al, 2016, MNRAS, arxiv:1601.07178) Reconciling Dwarf Galaxies with LCDM Cosmology: Simulating a realistic population of satellites around a Milky-Way Mass Galaxy (Wetzel et al, 2016, ApJ Submitted, arxiv:1602.05957) A Newly-Discovered Radio Halo in Merging Cluster MACS J2243.3-0935 (Cantwell et al, 2016, MNRAS acceptedarxiv:1602.05923)
9 March Stable Block Common Room	Great tilt gave Mars a new face: Science Daily article Simulation analyzes cosmic rays: Science Daily article Dark Mercury's 'pencil lead crust' revealed: BBC article Comparing the properties of the X-shaped bulges of NGC 4710 and the Milky Way with MUSE (Gonzalez et al, 2016, A&A, arxiv:1603.02546) The First Stars: formation under cosmic ray feedback (Hummel et al, 2016, Submitted MNRAS, arxiv:1602.06948) A remarkably luminous galaxy at z=11.1 measured with Hubble Space Telescope Grism Spectroscopy (Oesch et al, 2016, ApJ Submittedarxiv:1603.00461)
6 April Common Room	Project to drill into 'dinosaur crater' gets under way: BBC article Caught For The First Time: The Early Flash Of An Exploding Star: NASA article Evidence of Fermi bubbles around M31 (M. S. Pshirkov, V. V. Vasiliev, K. A. Postnov, 2016, Accepted MNRAS Letters, arxiv:1603.07245) A Tale of Two Narrow-Line Regions: Ionization, Kinematics, and Spectral Energy Distributions for a Local Pair of Merging Obscured Active Galaxies (Hainline et al, 2016, Accepted ApJ, arxiv:1603.06589) Fast Radio Bursts as Probes of Magnetic Fields in Filaments of Galaxies (Takuya Akahori, Dongsu Ryu, B. M. Gaensler , 2016, ApJ Submitted, arxiv:1602.03235)
20 April Stable Block Common Room	SpaceX successfully lands its rocket on a floating drone ship for the first time : The Verge Article Alien 'Wow!' signal could be explained after almost 40 years: The Guardian Article Hawking backs interstellar travel project: BBC Article Status of X-ray Astronomy Satellite Hitomi (ASTRO-H): JAXA Presentation Attitude control failures led to break-up of Japanese astronomy satellite : Spaceflight Now Article Astronomers in South Africa discover mysterious alignment of black holes : RAS Press Release Alignments of Radio Galaxies in Deep Radio Imaging of ELAIS N1 (A.R. Taylor, P. Jagannathan, 2016, Accepted MNRAS Letters, arxiv:1603.02418) Modeling the Multi-Band Afterglow of GRB 130831A: Evidence for a Spinning-Down Magnetar Dominated by Gravitational Wave Losses? (Q. Zhang, Y. F. Huang, H. S. Zong, 2016, Accepted ApJ, arxiv:1604.04817) Fast outflows and star formation quenching in quasar host galaxies (S. Carniani et al., 2016, A&A Submitted, arxiv:1604.04290)
4 May Common Room	Large Hadron Collider: Weasel causes shutdown: BBC Article Planet Nine: A world that shouldn't exist: Science Daily Article Three potentially habitable worlds found around nearby ultracool dwarf star: Science Daily Article NASA's Fermi Telescope Helps Link Cosmic Neutrino to Blazar Blast: NASA Article Is the (3+1)-d nature of the universe a thermodynamic necessity? (J. Gonzalez-Ayala & F. Angulo-Brown, 2016, Accepted EPL, Europhysics Letters) Suppression of star formation in dwarf galaxies by grain photoelectric feedback (J. Forbes et al., 2016, Accepted Nature, arxiv:1605.00650) A shock at the radio relic position in Abell 115 (A. Botteon et al., 2016, Accepted MNRAS Letters, arxiv:1604.07823) Gas velocity patterns in simulated galaxies: Observational diagnostics of spiral structure theories (J. Baba et al., 2016, Accepted MNRAS, arxiv:1604.06879)
18 May Common Room	Astronomers find clouds of primordial gas from the early universe, just moments after Big Bang: Science Daily Article Small blue galaxy could shed new light on Big Bang: Science Daily Article Europa's Ocean May Have An Earthlike Chemical Balance: NASA Article Kepler's 1,284 Newly Confirmed Planets: Sky and Telescope Article Prompt emission from GRB 150915A in the GeV energy range detected at ground by the New-Tupi detector (C. R. A. Augusto et al., 2016, Preprint, arxiv:1605.04274) Embedded star clusters as sources of high-energy cosmic rays: Modelling and constraints (G. Maurin et al., 2016, Accepted A&A, arxiv:1605.04202)
1 June Common Room	~~~~ Cancelled ~~~~
15 June Stable Block Common Room	Milky Way now hidden from one-third of humanity: Science Daily Article Extreme trans-Neptunian objects lead the way to Planet Nine: Science Daily Article LISA Pathfinder Performance: ESA Article Upholding the Unified Model for Active Galactic Nuclei: VLT/FORS2 Spectropolarimetry of Seyfert 2 galaxies (C. Ramos Almeida et al., 2016, MNRAS Accepted, arxiv:1606.02204) Systematic biases in low frequency radio interferometric data due to calibration: the LOFAR EoR case (Ajinkya H. Patil et al., 2016, Submitted to MNRAS, arxiv:1605.07619)
29 June Stable Block Common Room	~~~~ Cancelled ~~~~
13 July Stable Block Common Room	NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Sends First In-orbit View: NASA Article Black hole makes material wobble around it: Science Daily Article Flavour changing neutrinos give insight into Big Bang: BBC Article A hard X-ray view of the soft excess in AGN (Boissay, Ricci & Paltani, 2016, A&A Accepted, arxiv:1511.08168) The quiescent intracluster medium in the core of the Perseus cluster (The Hitomi Collaboration, 2016, Nature, arxiv:1607.04487) A High Stellar Velocity Dispersion and ~100 Globular Clusters for the Ultra Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44 (van Dokkum et al., 2016, ApJL Accepted, arxiv:1606.06291)
27 July Stable Block Common Room	MeerKAT in South Africa Sees First Light: Sky and Telescope Article Stellar outburst brings water snowline around a young star into view: Science Daily Article Hubble Spots a Secluded Starburst Galaxy: NASA Article Dark matter concentrations in galactic nuclei according to polytropic models (Saxton, Younsi & Wu., 2016, MNRAS Accepted, arxiv:1606.07066) Hitomi constraints on the 3.5 keV line in the Perseus galaxy cluster (Hitomi Collaboration, 2016, Submitted to ApJL, arxiv:1607.07420) Clumpy high-z galaxies as a testbed for feedback-regulated galaxy formation (L. Mayer et al., 2016, Submitted to ApJL, arxiv:1606.06739) Constraining the Mass of the Photon with Gamma-Ray Bursts (B. Zhang et al., 2016, JHEA Accepted, arxiv:1607.03225)
August NA	~~~~ Summer break ~~~~
12 October Stable Block Common Room	New Object Vies for Kuiper Belt Record: Sky and Telescope Article Mission Complete: Rosetta's Journey Ends in Daring Descent to Comet: ESA Article Nobel Prize in Physics goes to British scientists for research into 'exotic phases of matter': WIRED Physics Article Building an Inclusive AAS - The Critical Role of Diversity and Inclusion Training for AAS Council and Astronomy Leadership (Brinkworth et al., 2016, arxiv:1610.02916) Evidence for vacuum birefringence from the first optical polarimetry measurement of the isolated neutron star RX J1856.5-3754 (Mignani et al., 2016. )
26 October Office 207	Observable universe contains two trillion galaxies, 10 times more than previously thought: Science Daily Article Proxima Centauri might be more sunlike than we thought: Science Daily Article The second closest gamma-ray burst: sub-luminous GRB 111005A with no supernova in a super-solar metallicity environment (Michalowski et al., 2016, A&A Submitted, arxiv:1610.06928)
9 November Common Room	Cosmic clue to UK coastal erosion: BBC Article Birth of massive stars is accompanied by strong luminosity bursts: Science Daily Article Close galactic encounter leaves 'nearly naked' supermassive black hole: Science Daily Article The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate-or is it?: Phys.org Article Diffuse radio emission in MACS J0025.4-1222: the effect of a major merger on bulk separation of ICM components (Riseley et al., 2016, A&A accepted, arxiv:1611.01273) Looking for dark matter trails in colliding galaxy clusters (Harvey et al., 2016, MNRAS accepted, arxiv:1610.05327)
23 November Common Room	Large number of dwarf galaxies discovered in the early universe: Science Daily Article In a first, astronomers catch a multiple star system in the process of forming: Science Daily Article Peer-review 'heroes' do lion's share of the work: Nature Article A box full of chocolates: The rich structure of the nearby stellar halo revealed by Gaia and RAVE (Helmi et al., 2016, A&A submitted, arxiv:1611.00222) Dark Cosmic Rays (Hu, Kusenko, Takhistov, 2016, e-print, arxiv:1611.04599)

Journal club schedules in other years: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018.