WFU Physics Colloquium

TITLE: Gamma-Ray Bursts

SPEAKER: Professor Davide Lazzati,

TIME: Wednesday Febuary 15, 2012 at 4:00 PM

PLACE: Room 101 Olin Physical Laboratory

Gamma-ray bursts are incredible machines capable of accelerating an Earth's mass of plasma to relativistic speed in a blink of an eye and to release in just a few seconds more electromagnetic radiation than the Sun can in 10 billion years. I will review the exciting spy story of their discovery and the slow investigative process that led to our understanding of these extreme objects through 40 years of blunders, insight, and intuitions. Coming to the present day, I will delve into the exciting technological and theoretical advances that we have seen in the last few years to describe our current understanding of the bursts' physics, its observational foundations, and the challenges that await ahead.