Galaxy Formation
The Galaxy Formation group is developing the numerical tools and physical insights necessary to understand how galaxies form and evolve within a cosmological context.
A fully predictive theory of galaxy formation remains one of the great, unsolved problems of astrophysics. Galaxy formation represents the intersection of many branches of physics from cosmology to plasma physics, and involves a vast range of length and timescales. Our goal is to explain a wide range of observations ranging from high redshift quasars down to the smallest local dwarf galaxies.
Group members are particularly interested in the following topics:
• star formation and stellar feedback
• baryon flows and the circumgalactic medium
• synthetic observations
• co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes
• large scale structure
Collaborations
Learning the Universe
This collaboration, directed by Greg Bryan of Columbia University, aims to understand and determine the evolution and initial conditions of our universe, using observations via a Bayesian forward modeling approach.