Radiative Transfer

This page is a work in progress. I intend to add more content here in the future.

When a new star is born, it heats the interstellar medium via the radiation it emits. Star-forming environments are typically much denser with gas and dust than other regions in the galaxy. Knowing the temperature of these regions is critical for accurately modeling their gravitational collapse to form stars. We simulate these regions using advanced multi-physics calculations on supercomputers. For my PhD work, I developed a new hybrid radiative-transfer scheme that combined a raytracing model with a diffusion model. With this model, we were able to simulate how energy from a star couples with the surrounding medium, and how that medium re-radiates that energy in a diffuse manner. This allowed us to capture the appropriate physics in both the dense and diffuse regions of space.