New Paper: Rabacus Method Paper Accepted

Over the course of the last year of Gabriel’s tenure in the group, we were working on Rabacus, an analytic toolkit for cosmological radiative transfer problems. Its method paper was recently accepted (arXiv) for publication in the relatively new journal Astronomy & Computing. Rabacus can accommodate arbitrary spectra and density profiles and includes the radiative transfer of both hydrogen and helium, including recombination radiation. Its user interface is written in Python with its core modules written in Fortran 90 for computational speed. It is publicly-available with a detailed user guide.

In particular, it can be used to calculate the photo-ionization and photo-heating rates inside cosmological objects that are marginally optically thick. This is important for determining the number density of neutral hydrogen absorbers in the universe, placing constraints on large-scale structure, the ultraviolet radiation background, and the amount of fuel for subsequent star formation.

12 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Fialkov & Loeb, Distortion of the luminosity function of high-redshift galaxies by gravitational lensing
• (abs, pdf) Körtgen & Banerjee, Impact Of Magnetic Fields On Molecular Cloud Formation & Evolution
• (abs, pdf) Natale et al., Predicting the stellar and non-equilibrium dust emission spectra of high-resolution simulated galaxies with DART-Ray
• (abs, pdf) Gullberg et al., The nature of the [CII] emission in dusty star-forming galaxies from the SPT survey

11 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Trenti et al., The formation of globular clusters through minihalo-minihalo mergers
• (abs, pdf) Lehnert et al., On the cosmic evolution of the specific star formation rate
• (abs, pdf) Fialkov et al., Reconstructing the nature of the first cosmic sources from the anisotropic 21-cm signal
• (abs, pdf) Altay & Wise, Rabacus: A Python Package for Analytic Cosmological Radiative Transfer Calculations
• (abs, pdf) Haardt & Salvaterra, High redshift AGNs and HI reionisation: limits from the unresolved X-ray background

10 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Oñorbe et al., Forged in FIRE: cusps, cores, and baryons in low-mass dwarf galaxies
• (abs, pdf) Ahn, Light-Cone Effect of Radiation Fields in Cosmological Radiative Transfer Simulations

09 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Robertson et al., Cosmic Reionization and Early Star-Forming Galaxies: A Joint Analysis of New Constraints from Planck and Hubble Space Telescope
• (abs, pdf) Del Popolo & Pace, The Cusp/Core problem: supernovae feedback versus the baryonic clumps and dynamical friction model
• (abs, pdf) Machida & Nakamura, Accretion Phase of Star Formation in Clouds with Different Metallicities

Dunn Family Professorship

I am deeply honored to have been selected to receive the Dunn Family Professorship. It was established “to recognize excellence in research scholarship of faculty members at the School of Physics in the early stages of their careers”. Its support will aid in furthering our research efforts in early galaxy formation and promoting the scholarship of the School of Physics at Georgia Tech. I want to thank the Dunn Family for their philanthropy to support young faculty.

06 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Rodriguez-Gomez et al., The merger rate of galaxies in the Illustris Simulation: a comparison with observations and semi-empirical models
• (abs, pdf) Lake et al., On the Diffuse Lyman-alpha Halo Around Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxies
• (abs, pdf) Planck Collaboration et al., Planck 2015 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results
• (abs, pdf) Planck Collaboration et al., Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• (abs, pdf) Planck Collaboration et al., Planck 2015 results. XIX. Constraints on primordial magnetic fields

05 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Oh et al., High-resolution mass models of dwarf galaxies from LITTLE THINGS

03 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Artale et al., Stellar feedback from HMXBs in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations
• (abs, pdf) Gronke et al., Connecting Faint End Slopes of the Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter and Lyman-break Galaxy Luminosity Functions
• (abs, pdf) Kehrig et al., The extended HeII4686-emitting region in IZw18 unveiled: clues for peculiar ionizing sources

02 Feb 2015

• (abs, pdf) Tremmel et al., Off the Beaten Path: A New Approach to Realistically Model The Orbital Decay of Supermassive Black Holes in Galaxy Formation Simulations