Late last week, we submitted a new article that focuses on convergence tests on dark matter resolution in simulations that deal with a gas-dominated collapse. This is relevant in collapse problems that are centered in a dark matter halo, such as metal-free stars and black holes that directly collapse from a proto-galactic gas cloud. … Continue Reading ››

The whole group attended the 225th American Astronomical Society Meeting held in Seattle, WA earlier this month. Here Aycin presented our latest results in a contributed talk titled "Songlines from Direct Collapse Black Holes", and my graduate students and I presented our work in the following five posters.

• Kirk Barrow - "First Light: Exploring the Spectra … Continue Reading ››

Last week our paper titled "Fully-Coupled Simulation of Cosmic Reionization. I: Numerical Methods and Tests" was accepted to the Astrophysical Journal Supplement. This paper was written in collaboration with a few colleagues in UC-San Diego, and SMU.  I was added to this work during the review process when it was determined that we needed a … Continue Reading ››

Last month my first postdoc, Gabriel Altay, accepted a job offer at Narrative Science in Chicago, where he will be developing software for natural language generation. It's been great having him on-board for the last two years, helping me build up my group. His interactions inside the group and CRA will be missed. Good luck … Continue Reading ››

Our paper (arXiv) on the response of the gas in the nuclear regions of the first galaxies, titled "Songlines from Direct Collapse Seed Black Holes: Effects of X-rays on Black Hole Growth and Stellar Populations", has been accepted to the Astrophysical Journal!  It should … Continue Reading ››

Today, we have submitted a paper (arXiv) on the initial growth of massive black hole seeds to The Astrophysical Journal. The growth of supermassive black holes (BHs) has been intricately linked to galaxy formation and evolution and is a key ingredient in the assembly of galaxies. In this study, we investigate the growth of massive BHs … Continue Reading ››

KwangHo Park has arrived in the CRA this week as a new TCAN postdoc, and his primary mentor will be Prof. Tamara Bogdanovic. He works on radiation hydrodynamics as applied to intermediate mass holes, feedback by accretion onto black holes, and black hole growth in the early Universe.  He previously held … Continue Reading ››

Today, we have submitted a new paper (arXiv) to the Astrophysical Journal on the scaling relations of galaxies that form during the first 300 million years of the universe, just when reionization is beginning. It is important to quantify the global properties of these early galaxies with respect to cosmological structure simulations in order … Continue Reading ››