Astrophysics Research Interests

Faculty

• Professor James Stone: Astrophysical gas dynamics; star and planet formation, accretion flows, interstellar gas dynamics. Numerical algorithms for magneto-hydrodynamics and radiation hydrodynamics
• Professor Matias Zaldarriaga: Cosmology -- early universe cosmology, cosmological perturbation theory, cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure, dark matter and dark energy

Current Members

• Kazuyuki Akitsu: tidal effects arising from the initial conditions or the gravitational clustering in the cosmological structure formation; extracting cosmological signals hidden in the shape of galaxies.

• Lev Arzamasskiy: Plasma astrophysics, collisionless turbulence, particle heating, plasma instabilities, accretion disks, solar wind, intracluster medium

• Giovanni Cabass: Effective field theory methods in cosmology: inflation and large-scale structure; galaxy bias; non-Gaussianity of primordial gravitational waves

• Shi-Fan Chen: large scale structure of the universe and studies both its evolution and use to constrain fundamental physics, with an emphasis on perturbative methods. A particular recent interest has involved using these techniques in the arena of cross correlations, which he plans to further develop at the Institute.

• Sihao Cheng: using statistical analysis to understand our Universe, including topics in cosmology, stellar physics, and extrasolar planets. Recently he has become interested in developing analytical tools inspired by neural networks and studying their connection to and applications in physics.

• Horng Sheng Chia: Gravitational waves, orbital dynamics, black holes and neutron stars, astroparticle physics, dark matter, physics beyond the Standard Model, cosmology

• Chris Hamilton: dynamics of galaxies, globular clusters, binary stars, and planetary systems; compact object mergers (LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave progenitors); and the kinetic theory of stellar systems and plasmas.

• Christopher Hirata: Interests ranging from the early Universe (inflation and the cosmic microwave background) to the late Universe (large scale structure and dark energy). Hirata is a theorist, but has a particular interest in statistics, data analysis, and collaboration with observational programs.

• Hsiang-Chih Hwang: Binary stars, binary quasars, galactic dynamics, galactic archaeology, chemical abundances, white dwarfs

• Mikhail Ivanov: cosmological structure formation; gravitational clustering; black hole physics and the effective field theory of inspiraling binaries.

• Linial Itai: broad range of theoretical topics in astrophysics, including high-energy transient phenomena and dynamical processes occurring near supermassive black holes in centers of galaxies and sources of gravitational waves.

• Stephen Lubow: works on the theory of planet formation, binary stars, and accretion disks around young stars.

• Lia Medeiros: Black holes, the Galactic center black hole Sgr A*, the Event Horizon Telescope, tests of GR, accretion disks, variability of accreting systems, principal components analysis, simulations

• Elias Most: Gravitational waves, neutron stars, neutron star equation of state, neutron star mergers, electromagnetic precursors, magnetohydrodynamics, numerical relativity, numerical methods for astrophysical fluid dynamics

• Patrick Mullen: astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics; numerical simulations of the planetary scale giant impact thought to have formed Earth's Moon.

• Kohta Murase: investigating the origins of high-energy cosmic particles and underlying physical mechanisms; extreme astrophysical phenomena related to black holes and neutron stars in light of multimessenger astrophysics; exploring novel probes of dark matter and physics beyond the Standard Model.

• Elena Murchikova: Milky Way's Galactic Centre black hole Sagittarius A*; black hole accretion; accretion disks; ALMA; neutron stars and chiral fluids

• Tomohiro Ono: focuses on planet formation and numerical algorithms for astrophysical magnetohydrodynamic simulations. While at IAS, he will work on the improvement and optimization of the Athena++ code.

• Martin Pessah: theoretical astrophysics, including dust dynamics and planet formation in protoplanetary disks, accretion flows feeding black holes, the dilute plasma permeating galaxy clusters; problems related to gravitational wave astrophysics and tidal disruption events.

• Annika Peter: dark matter astrophysicist, working on theoretical and observational signatures of dark matter in the cosmos.  During her IAS visit, she plans to learn more about plasma astrophysics, and work on theoretical and observational aspects of dwarf galaxy--dark matter halo connections.

• Carolyn Raithel: Neutron stars, the dense-matter equation of state, gravitational waves, neutron star mergers, Bayesian inference, numerical simulations, core-collapse supernovae

• Bart Ripperda: trying to connect fundamental plasma physics with observations of high-energy emission from black holes and neutron stars. While at IAS, he will study the plasma physics of these compact objects by using a novel combination of general-relativistic kinetic simulations and magnetohydrodynamics models.

• Sahu Kailash: focused on applying microlensing, transit, and relativistic deflection techniques to study exoplanets, nearby stars and black holes. He recently reported the first unambiguous detection of a stellar-mass black hole, and measured its mass.

• Sophie Schroder: uses numerical methods and analytic modeling to study high-energy astrophysical phenomena and especially evolution of stellar binaries; the impact of hydrodynamical interactions on orbiting binaries and populations of gravitational wave sources.

• Digvijay Wadekar: cosmology, astroparticle physics and machine learning; cosmological inference from galaxy surveys, probing non-standard dark matter using dwarf galaxies, and machine learning to emulate expensive hydrodynamic simulations.

• George Wong: high-energy astrophysical phenomena, especially in the context of accretion onto supermassive black holes; connection between black holes and relativistic jets as might be observed by next-generation experiments.

• Siyao Xu: Magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, turbulent dynamo, magnetic reconnection, cosmic rays, (first) star formation, high-energy astrophysics, interstellar / intergalactic turbulence

• Tomer Yavetz: applying the tools of theoretical dynamics in order to understand a variety of phenomena, ranging from the orbits of Earth satellites to the nature of dark matter. His main focus is on studying the distribution and substructure of dark matter in the Milky Way.

• Muni Zhou: uses a combination of analytic theory and numerical experiments to study plasma physics problems such as magnetogenesis, plasma dynamos, and kinetic turbulence.