Astrophysics Seminar

I'm a lumberjack, and I'm OK: hunting for trees in the Lyman-alpha forest

Dr. John O'Meara
Penn State - Worthington-Scranton

Tuesday, November 7, 2006   12:30 pm   NSH 415

 

Over the last three decades, studies of hydrogen and heavy element absorption in the spectra of distant quasars has helped shape our understanding of the universe on nearly every scale.  In this talk, I will discuss the the variety of ways a relatively poorly understood sub-sample of the quasar absorption line systems, the Lyman limit systems, can impact a wide range of current cosmological topics of interest. These topics include the number of atoms in the universe, the locations of gas reservoirs suitable for star formation, and a possible solution to the cosmological "missing metals" problem.