P. (Pratika) Dayal, Prof
Speerpunten
My main research interests
lies in Galaxy formation in the first billion years, a time of
great upheaval in the history of the Universe. As the first sources
of light in a dark Universe, these galaxies ended the ‘cosmic
dark ages’ and produced the first photons that could break
apart the fragile hydrogen atoms suffusing all of space starting
the process of ‘cosmic reionization’. The primary
building blocks of all structure, these galaxies determine the
physical properties of all subsequent galaxy populations. Indeed,
the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of modern astrophysics, the
earliest galaxies are critical to understand the beautifully
complex Universe we see today.
My main goals are to learn:
- - how the inextricably interlinked processes of galaxy formation and reionization drive each other
- - if reionization observations, possible with the forthcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA), can be linked to the physical properties of the underlying galaxy population
- - more about the nature of the elusive Dark Matter that makes up 80% of the matter content in the Universe
To this end my research group is developing a coherent theoretical
framework for modelling galaxy formation in the first billion years
of the Universe combining state-of-the-art simulations of structure
formation, a semi-analytic model of galaxy formation and numerical
radiative-transfer codes. This work is supported by my ERC starting
grant (DELPHI) and a NWO VIDI grant (ODIN).