Abstract: The Importance of Being Eccentric
The collective gravity of bodies on eccentric orbits is key to understanding the evolution of gravitational systems from planets to galaxies. In this talk, I will demonstrate wide-ranging implications of these dynamics such as the orbital clustering of icy bodies in the outer solar system (observations of which have motivated the Planet 9 hypothesis), the feeding of stars and gas to supermassive black holes, and surprising locations of galactic dark matter over-densities.
Dr. Ann-Marie Madigan is an associate professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder. Born in Dublin, she was one of the first students in Ireland to receive an undergraduate degree in Astronomy (at the University of Ireland, Galway). She received her PhD in astronomy from Leiden University in The Netherlands and was a NASA Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.