Dr. Pratik Gandhi is our group’s fourth graduating PhD student! He completedhis PhD dissertation on Connecting the near and far: studying high-redshift galaxies and stellar feedback processes using the Local Group fossil record. He has started a postdoc in the Department of Astronomy at Yale University. Congratulations Dr. Gandhi!
Dr. Matt Bellardini is our group’s third graduating PhD student! He completed his PhD dissertation on Chemical Evolution Across Cosmic Time: Stellar Elemental Abundance Patterns and Radial Redistribution in Cosmological Simulations. Matt is searching for industry jobs in the Seattle area. Congratulations Dr. Bellardini!
Dr. lsaiah Santistevan is our group’s second graduating PhD student! He completed his PhD dissertation on Modelling the Formation and Evolution of Satellite Galaxies in Cosmological Simulations. He will start as a postdoc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Congratulations Dr. Santistevan!
The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)Â selected Pratik Gandhi for a Frontera Computational Science Fellowship! This fellowship will provide one year of tuition and stipend, including a computing allocation on Frontera and collaboration and mentorship with members of TACC, for Pratik’s PhD project: Near-Far Connection: Using the Stellar Fossil Record of Local Group Dwarf Galaxies to Probe the Epoch of Reionization. Congratulations Pratik!
Radial distance distribution of satellite galaxies around MW-mass galaxies in the FIRE-2 simulations, as compared with the MW and M31
We are excited to announce the first student-led paper from our group, from PhD student Jenna Samuel: A profile in FIRE: resolving the radial distributions of satellite dwarf galaxies in the Local Group with simulations. Jenna examined the radial distance distribution of satellite galaxies around MW/M31-mass galaxies in our FIRE simulations, which she showed are consistent with the Local Group and with MW-like galaxies from the SAGA survey. Interestingly, more massive host galaxies have fewer satellites at small distances, because of tidal destruction from the host galaxy. Jenna also quantified the destruction of subhalos by comparing our baryonic simulations to their dark matter-only versions, finding 10x fewer subhalos within the inner 20 kpc. Finally, Jenna applied observational completeness within the LG to our simulations, predicting 2-10 more satellites with stellar mass > 1e5 Msun to be discovered around the MW and 6-9 around M31. Congratulations to Jenna for an excellent first paper!