RUI: Formation and Evolution of Galactic Disks: Dark Matter - Baryonic Environments

Dr Heller will use a code that his group has developed to study how the presence of gas affects the way that massive disk galaxies and their satellites form. Most of the mass of a galaxy is in its invisible 'dark halo', and the character that such dark halos would have in the absence of stars and gas is now fairly well understood. But in the star-forming regions of luminous galaxies, the strongest gravitational forces come from the stars, and the gas from which they were made. Dr Heller, his students and his collaborators will perform simulations in a cosmological environment that include the dynamics of the gas, and some aspects of the way that energy from newly-formed stars feeds back to heat that gas. They will study how this affects the subhalos in which satellite galaxies may form, and the dynamics of those subhalos, including the way that satellites might be pulled apart as they fall into the central galaxy.

This award will allow undergraduates at Georgia Southern University, where minority students make up a third of the student body, to take part in a cutting-edge research field, and to be trained in computational astrophysics and cosmology. Dr Heller is also Director of the on-campus planetarium, which hosts 8,000 visitors per year, including K-12 school groups. He will incorporate the research results into planetarium shows.

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).