Welcome to the StarXiv! A monthly podcast that delves into the latest astronomy papers & results from the arXiv.
Hosted by Michelle, Payel, and Nicole.



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Episode 30 – Direct collapse black holes, nuclear stellar discs, and machine learning merger histories
In this episode, Payel and Nicole delve into more JWST discoveries and further pushing the frontier of machine learning in astronomy – ultra-deep view of the cosmic web, machine-learning deep images to look for mergers, a direct collapse black hole explanation to Little Red Dots, machine-learning the Milky Way to reveal complex star formation histories…
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Episode 29 – Exploding stars, carbon stars, and starbursting pseudo little red dots
In this episode, Michelle and Nicole explore recent findings on Thamnos, carbon stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Supernova Type Ia as cosmic probes, and an intriguing object identified as a ‘pseudo little red dot’.
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Episode 10 – Mixing dark matter, surviving black holes and hunting for planets
This episode, Michelle and Payel delve into the latest constraints on mixed dark matter from the Lyman alpha forest, what happens to stars that get a little too close to a black hole, how machine learning can help identify stars likely to host an Earth-like planet, studying the dark ages from the Moon and witnessing…
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Episode 9 – slowing bars, growing black holes, pasta sauces and AI
In this episode, Payel and Michelle discuss how you can slow down a galaxy’s bar, scaling relations for black holes, whether we can use intracluster light to learn about dark matter, little red dots, AI cosmologists and pasta sauce for all your plotting needs! Check out our episode – and the papers that inspired it…
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Episode 8 – Cosmology, pulsars and dark matter in disk galaxies
In this episode, Payel and Michelle discuss the longest period pulsar, the formation of nuclear star clusters, the recent data releases from ACT and DESI, dark spiral arms and the problem with rotation curves. Papers in this episode: The discovery of a 41-second radio pulsar PSR J0311+1402 with ASKAP – Yuanming Wang et al. Seeding…
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Episode 7: black holes, stealthy satellites and the distance to DF2
In this episode of The Starxiv, Michelle and Payel discuss a revised distance for the controversial ultra-diffuse galaxy, DF2; a discovery of a supermassive black hole in an ultra compact dwarf; 2 galaxies hiding in plain sight; and how statistical mechanics may help with dark matters cusp-core problem. Michelle and Payel also have to put…
The Hosts
Payel Das & Michelle Collins are astronomers at the University of Surrey. They love research, but struggle to find time to read a lot of papers. They’re hoping this podcast fixes that. Nicole Buckley is a PhD student at the University of Surrey. She loves reading papers!
Keep in touch
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