Vivian U-
California Institute of Technology, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Galaxies are built from stars, gas and black holes, and how these parts interact decides how a galaxy like the Milky Way grows. Stars and black holes can change the chemistry of a galaxy's gas or blow it out entirely through winds.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
galaxy evolution
galaxy mergers
interacting galaxies
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Map hot ionized and warm molecular gas in a representative sample of merging (U)LIRG galaxies using new Keck and JWST integral-field spectroscopy, which records a spectrum at every point of an image.
- Measure the mass and energy carried by gas outflows in galaxy mergers and compare them with predictions from current feedback models across temperature and density regimes.
- Trace how gas moves from the dusty nuclear cores of merging galaxies out to the circumgalactic medium to show how gas fueling and feedback shape galaxy evolution.
More about the research
Losing gas tends to shut down the formation of new stars. These winds are especially common when galaxies collide and merge. This project follows gas as it flows into and out of merging galaxies to understand how this feeding and "feedback" shapes galaxy evolution.
Why it matters
This basic research shows how winds driven by stars and black holes move and remove gas in merging galaxies, a process that can halt new star formation. Measuring these outflows across gas phases tests current feedback models and could refine our picture of how galaxies, including ones like the Milky Way, grow over time.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Erin Hicks
University of Alaska Anchorage, AK·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure the distribution and motions of molecular, ionized, and coronal gas within the central 500 parsecs of 90 nearby active galactic nuclei, using adaptive-optics near-infrared integral-field spectroscopy from Keck/OSIRIS and VLT/SINFONI.
Kate Rowlands
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Map recent star-formation histories in nearby galaxies using full spectral fitting of KILOGAS data, and compare them with current interstellar gas to see how star formation depends on available gas.
Katherine Whitaker
University of Massachusetts, MA·Astronomy & Astrophysics·Early-career
Map large statistical samples of massive galaxies and their environments across cosmic history using the Prime Focus Spectrograph on the Subaru Telescope.
The school
California Institute of Technology: 18 labs on PI Pages, $445M a year on research, 200 research doctorates a year.
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