Integrated Calendar

The Center of our Galaxy is a unique laboratory for exploring the astrophysics around a massive black hole and testing General Relativity in this extreme environment. I will discuss the results of a major campaign of observing the Galactic Center in 2017/2018 with three instruments at the European Southern Observatory's VLT, including the novel GRAVITY interferometric beam combiner of the four 8-meter telescopes. During this period the B-star S2 completed a peri-passage at ~1400 Schwarzschild radii around the compact radio source SgrA*, and permitted for the first time a test of the equivalence principle and the detection of the first post-Newtonian orbital elements in a classical 'clock experiment' around a massive black hole. During bright states (

Since the isolation of graphene in 2004, atomically-thin quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) materials have proven to be an exciting platform for both applications in novel devices and exploring fundamental phenomena arising in low dimensions. This interesting low-dimensional behavior is a consequence of the combined effects of quantum confinement and stronger electron-electron correlations due to reduced screening. In this talk, I will discuss how the optical excitations (excitons) in quasi-2D materials, such as monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides and few-layer black phosphorus, differ from typical bulk materials. In particular, quasi-2D materials are host to a wide-variety of strongly-bound excitons with unusual excitation spectra and massless dispersion. The presence of these excitons can greatly enhance both linear and nonlinear response compared to bulk materials, making them ideal candidates for optoelectronics and energy applications. Moreover, due to enhanced correlations and environmental sensitivity, the electronic and optical properties of these materials can be easily tuned. I will discuss how substrate engineering, stacking of different layers, and the introduction or removal of defects can be used to tune the band gaps and optical selection rules in quasi-2D materials.

Living in a social environment involves diverse types of interactions between members of the same species that are essential for the health, survival, and reproduction of animals. The intricate nature of social interaction requires the ability to identify and recognize other members of the group in the right context, season, sex, age and reproductive state, and to respond appropriately to different social encounters.We study mechanisms that shape social interaction in Drosophila melanogaster and investigate the ways by which social interaction modulates motivational states and leads to different action selection in subsequent social encounters.