Galaxy Formation and the Intergalactic Medium Research Group

Department of Astronomy and Texas Cosmology Center, The University of Texas at Austin

Group Leader: Professor Paul Shapiro

RESEARCH

PAUL R. SHAPIRO Professor ADS arXiv
JUN-HWAN CHOI Postdoctoral Fellow ADS arXiv
BOHUA LI Graduate Student (Astronomy) ADS arXiv
HYUNBAE PARK Graduate Student (Astronomy) ADS arXiv

RESEARCH (2004 - today)

A. COSMIC REIONIZATION AND THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM

  1. The Effect of Small-Scale Structure and Minihalos on Cosmological Reionization
  2. C2-Ray: A New Method for Photon-Conserving Transport of Ionizing Radiation
  3. Simulating Cosmic Reionization at Large Scales
  4. Self-Regulated Reionization and Feedback of the First Radiation Sources
  5. Cosmological Radiative Transfer Comparison Project
    1. Cosmological radiative transfer codes comparison project - I. The static density field tests
    2. Cosmological radiative transfer codes comparison project - II. The hydrodynamic tests
    3. The Inhomogeneous Background Of H2-Dissociating Radiation During Cosmic Reionization
    4. Topology of Cosmic Reionization
      1. Reionization: characteristic scales, topology and observability
      2. Topology and sizes of H II regions during cosmic reionization
      3. The Euler Characteristic as a Measure of the Topology of Cosmic Reionization
    5. The Cosmic Near-Infrared Background
      1. The Cosmic Near-Infrared Background. II. Fluctuations
      2. The Cosmic Near Infrared Background III: Fluctuations, Reionization and the Effects of Minimum Mass and Self-regulation
    6. Cosmic Reionization and 21cm Background
      1. The 21 centimeter background from the cosmic dark ages: Minihalos and the intergalactic medium before reionization
      2. The Cosmic Reionization History as Revealed by the Cosmic Microwave Background Doppler-21 cm Correlation
      3. Measuring the history of cosmic reionization using the 21-cm probability distribution function from simulations
      4. The Impact of Peculiar Velocity and Inhomogeneous Reionization on 21cm Cosmology from the Epoch of Reionization
      5. Redshift Space Distortion of the 21cm Background from the Epoch of Reionization
      6. Light cone effect on the reionization 21-cm power spectrum

    B. GALAXY AND STRUCTURE FORMATION

    1. Understanding the Equilibrium Structure of CDM Halos
    2. The Cluster-Merger Shock in 1E 0657-56
    3. The Impact of Mergers on the Survival and Abundance of Disk-Dominated Galaxies
    4. Cosmic Structure Formation at High Redshift
    5. Observational Constraints on Supermassive Dark Stars

    C. DYNAMICS OF DARK MATTER VARIANTS

    1. Self-Interacting Dark Matter (SIDM)
      1. The Formation and Evolution of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos
      2. Gravothermal Collapse of Isolated Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos: N-body Simulation versus the Fluid Model
    2. Bose-Einstein-Condensed Dark Matter
      1. Angular Momentum and Vortex Formation in Bose-Einstein-Condensed Cold Dark Matter Halos

      D. ASTROPHYSICS OF THE INTERSTELLAR AND INTERGALACTIC GAS

      1. The Early Intergalactic Medium
        1. The HII Region of the First Star
        2. Relativistic Ionization Fronts
        3. Recognizing the First Radiation Sources through Their 21 cm Signature
        4. Ultraviolet Pumping of Hyperfine Transitions in the Light Elements in the Early Universe
        5. Heating and Cooling of the Early Intergalactic Medium by Resonance Photons
      2. The Interstellar Medium
        1. Fragmentation of Molecular Clouds
        2. Dynamical H II Region Evolution in Turbulent Molecular Clouds

      RESEARCH SUMMARY (1992 - 2003)

      A. COSMOLOGY

      1. Chemistry in the Early Universe: The Role of H2 Molecules in Galaxy and Primordial Star Formation
        1. Radiative Shocks and Hydrogen Molecules in Pregalactic Gas: The Effects of Postshock Radiation
        2. Radiative Shocks in Protogalaxies and the Origin of Globular Clusters
        3. Hydrogen Molecules in the Evolving Diffuse IGM in a Cold Dark Matter (CDM) Model Universe
      2. The Reionization of the Intergalactic Medium ("IGM")
        1. The Reionization of the Universe and its Observational Consequences
        2. Reionization in a Cold Dark Matter Universe: The Feedback of Galaxy Formation on the Intergalactic Medium
        3. Reionization Feedback and the Photoevaporation of Intergalactic Clouds
        4. Reionization of the Universe and the Photoevaporation of Cosmological Minihalos
      3. Adaptive Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics ("ASPH"): A New Numerical Method With Application to Galaxy and Large-Scale Structure Formation
        1. The New ASPH Method
        2. ASPH Simulations of Cosmological Gas Dynamics in 2D
        3. Explosions During Galaxy Formation
        4. False Cooling
      4. Likely Values of the Cosmological Constant: A Probability Argument to Resolve the Cosmological Constant Problem
      5. The Dynamics of Cosmic Structure Formation. I: Analytical Studies
        1. Galaxy Formation and Number Counts in Lambda > 0 Friedmann Universes
        2. A Convenient Set of Comoving Cosmological Variables and Their Application
        3. Nonlinear Perturbation Theory in Cosmology
        4. Three-Dimensional Shape Statistics and Galaxy Clustering
        5. The Cosmological Evolution of Top-Hat Density Perturbations
        6. Postcollapse Equilibrium Structure of Cosmological Halos
        7. The Asymptotic Collapsed Fraction in an Eternal Universe
        8. Formation and Evolution of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Halos
      6. The Dynamics of Cosmic Structure Formation. II: Numerical Studies
        1. The Gravitational Instability of Cosmological Pancakes
        2. Morphological Evolution of Galaxies
        3. A Database of COBE-Normalized CDM Simulations
        4. The Origin and Evolution of Cosmological Halos
      7. Light Propagation and Gravitational Lensing in Inhomogeneous Universes
        1. An Improved Version of the Multiple Lens-Plane Method
        2. Cosmological Parameter Survey
        3. Magnification Bias and the Quasar Luminosity Functions
      8. The Cosmic Dark Ages
        1. On the Direct Detectability of the Cosmic Dark Ages: 21-cm Emission from Minihalos

      B. THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM

      1. Superbubbles in the Galactic Disk and Halo: Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations
      2. Fragmentation of Molecular Clouds. The Effect of Rotation
      3. The Spectrum of Cooling Galactic Fountain Gas
      4. Dust Grain Carriers and the Diffuse Band Profiles
      5. Shadows Behind Neutral Clumps in Photoionized Regions

      Simulations of Cosmological Structure Formation