MATs (Monday Afternoon Talks)

3:00pm   Giulia Cerini, University of Miami

New Metrics to Probe the Dynamical State of Galaxy Clusters
Abstract: Clusters are assumed to be in hydrostatic equilibrium with gas and member galaxies tracing the underlying gravitational potential. Nevertheless, studies of merging clusters reveal that these assumptions might be simplistic. Using empirically derived HST lensing mass maps in combination with Chandra X-ray images data, we apply the Fourier analysis to study the dynamical state of galaxy clusters and cross-correlate the fluctuations of non-baryonic dark matter and hot intracluster gas. This method allows us to evaluate how well the gas traces the underlying dark matter potential.

Bio: I am a 4th-year graduate student at the Department of Physics of University of Miami, advised by Dr. Nico Cappelluti. I come from Italy, where I obtained my bachelor’s degree in physics and my first master’s degree in astronomy and astrophysics. My research is involved in X-ray Astrophysics, with a special interest in the study of Galaxy Cluster Dynamics and Cosmic X-ray Background. In the past years I was also focused on investigating the formation and evolution of early Supermassive Black Holes and Active Galactic Nuclei.

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3:30pm    Jordan Van Nest, University of Oklahoma (remote)

The Role of Mass and Environment on Satellite Distributions around Milky Way Analogs in the Romulus25 Simulation
Abstract: I will present a study of satellite galaxies around Milky Way-like halos in the Romulus25 cosmological simulation. Romulus25 contains anywhere from 66 to 97 Milky Way analogs, depending on how they are defined. Using this large sample, we quantify how the mass and environment of the analogs affect the satellite populations, with a focus on the number of hosted satellites and their quenched fraction. We find that host mass is the driving factor in both satellite accumulation and quenching, while environment has no discernable effect. We place these results in the context of observations through direct comparisons to the ELVES and SAGA surveys.

Bio: My name is Jordan Van Nest, and I am a current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma. I am part of the N-Body Shop Collaboration and work with cosmological simulations like the Romulus25/RomulusC volumes and Marvel/DCJL zoom-ins. My previous studies have been focused on Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies and satellites around Milky Way analogs, and my current work is a study of dwarf stellar morphology in Lambda-CDM and SIDM.

Host: Josh Borrow