Niels Bohr Lecture by Desika Narayanan, University of Florida

A Universe of Dusty Galaxies

Abstract: The most incredible bursts of star formation in galaxies occur during the Universe's infancy, and are enshrouded in cocoons of giant clouds of obscuring dust.  

Understanding the nature of this dust-obscured star formation over cosmic history is a decades-old problem, now being revolutionized observationally by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and James Webb Space Telescope facilities, which can peer to the birth of some of the first massive galaxies in the Universe.

I will describe the history of our understanding of dust-obscured star formation in the early Universe, as well as the current state-of-the-art of massive supercomputer simulations of cosmological galaxy evolution that attempt to build a concordance model of the evolution of massive starbursting galaxies across cosmic time.

Bio:

Desika Narayanan is an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Florida, and an International Associate of the Cosmic Dawn Centre at NBI/DTU.  His research focuses on the astrophysical theory of galaxy formation, and in particular, the complex interplay between star formation, galaxy evolution, and the physics of the interstellar medium (the gas that fills the space between the stars).    

He runs large scale numerical simulations of cosmological galaxy evolution, and develops techniques both at the intersection of theory and observations, as well as traditional computation and AI in order to forward his research.

He began his career at the University of Florida (undergraduate), and earned his PhD at the University of Arizona in 2007.  Following postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard and again at the University of Arizona, he spent 3 years on the faculty at Haverford College, before returning to the University of Florida in 2017.  

Outside of Astronomy, Desika is an avid surfer, snowboarder, and (roller) hockey player.