Seminars and Colloquia at ESO Santiago

July 2025

03/07/25 (Thursday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — Discovering faint stars in the Galactic Center with GRAVITY
Felix Mang (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)

Abstract

The Galactic Center provides a unique environment to study the effects of General Relativity in the vicinity of a supermassive Black Hole. Stars orbiting the Black Hole SgrA* serve as test particles to measure deviations from Newtonian motion. The near-infrared beam combiner instrument GRAVITY at ESO’s VLT has enabled the measurement of the gravitational redshift and Schwarzschild precession of the star S2, one of the predicted relativistic effects on its orbital motion.
To measure even higher order deviations from Newtonian motion, in particular, to constrain thereby the spin of SgrA*, new stars need to be found that are orbiting the Black Hole even closer than S2.
Here, image reconstruction of GRAVITY’s high-resolution interferometric data is a powerful tool for finding faint yet undiscovered stars.
We present the revised image reconstruction method GRAVITY-RESOLVE (GR), based on Bayesian Inference, which is particularly designed for Galactic Center observations with GRAVITY. We give an overview of its development, most recent results, and its application to latest data of GRAVITY+, the upgrade of GRAVITY. In particular, we present the orbit of the star S301, a star that has been discovered with GR, and its implication on the possibility of constraining the spin of SgrA* in the era of the ELT.

07/07/25 (Monday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Daniel Daza (Universidad de Chile)

Abstract

TBD

09/07/25 (Wednesday)
15:30, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
ESO Colloquium
Talk — Machine Learning in the Age of Astrophysical Big Data
Priyanka Jalan (Center for Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

The exponential growth of astrophysical datasets from modern observatories and sky surveys demands robust, scalable, and intelligent analysis techniques. In this talk, I will present two distinct yet complementary applications of machine learning to major challenges in observational astrophysics: spectral line fitting and photometric redshift refinement.
First, I will introduce FLAME, a deep convolutional neural network framework designed to fit Voigt profiles to H I Lyman-α absorption lines. Trained on millions of simulated spectra modeled to mimic HST-COS observations, FLAME combines classification and regression networks to determine component structures and derive key physical parameters such as Doppler widths and column densities. It achieves high accuracy on simulated data, with performance degradation on real observations attributable to noise and instrumental effects, highlighting both the promise and challenges of applying supervised learning to spectroscopic data.
Second, I will demonstrate the use of self-organizing maps (SOMs) to assess and refine photometric redshift (photo-z) catalogs for bright galaxies in the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS). By mapping galaxy colors and magnitudes onto a low-dimensional manifold, we identify regions of parameter space where empirical photo-z estimates are less reliable due to underrepresentation in the spectroscopic training sets. This unsupervised approach enables targeted refinement of the catalog and guides the optimal incorporation of additional spectroscopic data.
Together, these case studies illustrate the power and versatility of machine learning--both supervised and unsupervised--in extracting physical insights from complex, high-dimensional astrophysical data. As data volumes continue to grow with upcoming missions like Rubin-LSST, Euclid, and DESI, such techniques will be essential for maximizing scientific return across domains.

10/07/25 (Thursday)
11:00, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
EquiTea
Talk — Allyship and how community support makes science easier
Abigail Frost (ESO)

Abstract

TBD

15:30, JAO Licancabur | ESO Santiago
JAO Tech Talks
Talk — TBD
Eelco van Kampen (ESO/EASC)

Abstract

TBD

15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — Winds and protoplanetary disk substructures near and afar
Carlo Manara (ESO Garching)

Abstract

When and how did the multitude of observed exo-planets form? The quest to understands how planet forms needs a deep understanding of the properties of their natal environments, the protoplanetary disks. 

Investigating the origin of the ring-like and asymmetric structures observed in protoplanetary disks, and pushing such studies to the distant and massive star-forming regions, the locations that best represent the natal environments of the known exo-planets, is the key question of our research.

I will show recent results on what we have learned so far by combining large samples of VLT spectroscopic and ALMA mm-interferometric data to study simultaneously the stellar, accretion, wind, and disk properties of young stellar objects, and how these studies are being followed-up with explorations of further distant star-forming regions and combined efforts to better understand the impact of winds in the evolution of disks, and possibly in the origin of their structures.

14/07/25 (Monday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — tbd
Stefano Bellotti (Leiden Sterrewacht)

Abstract

tbd

17/07/25 (Thursday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Jennifer Peralta Lucero (Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Porto)

Abstract

TBD

22/07/25 (Tuesday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Sara Federle (ESO Santiago)

Abstract

TBD

30/07/25 (Wednesday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Richard Cannon (University of Edinburgh)

Abstract

TBD

31/07/25 (Thursday)
15:30, JAO Licancabur | ESO Santiago
JAO Tech Talks
Talk — ALMA Data Quality Assurance
Zahorecz Sarolta (East Asia ALMA ARC)

Abstract

TBD

August 2025

13/08/25 (Wednesday)
15:30, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
ESO Colloquium
Talk — TBD
Bibiana Prinoth (Lund University)

Abstract

TBD

25/08/25 (Monday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Julien Drevon (ESO Chile)

Abstract

TBD

29/08/25 (Friday)
14:00, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
ESO-Chile local faculty meeting
Talk — ESO-Chile local faculty meeting
ESO faculty

September 2025

01/09/25 (Monday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Maria Luiza L. Dantas (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

Abstract

TBD

02/09/25 (Tuesday)
15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Capucine Barfety (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)

Abstract

TBD

03/09/25 (Wednesday)
11:00, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
EquiTea
Talk — Roundtable of women in leadership
Eleonora Sani, Andrea Mehner and Claudia Paladini (ESO)

Abstract

TBD

15:30, Library (ESO, Vitacura) | ESO Santiago
TMT (30 minutes talk)
Talk — TBD
Jianhang Chen (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics)

Abstract

TBD

10/09/25 (Wednesday)
15:30, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
ESO Colloquium
Talk — TBD
Francesco Di Mille (Las Campanas Observatory)

Abstract

TBD

22/09/25 (Monday)
15:30, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
ESO Colloquium
Talk — tbd
Boris Gaensicke (University of Warwick)

Abstract

tbd

October 2025

24/10/25 (Friday)
14:00, Urania room (ESO, Santiago) | ESO Santiago
ESO-Chile local faculty meeting
Talk — ESO-Chile local faculty meeting
ESO faculty