Studying at MPA

The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) in Garching invites students to carry out their research at MPA. We welcome applicants from Germany and abroad. In principle there are two options for doing research at MPA:

  • Bachelor/Master Thesis
  • PhD Thesis


Bachelor's or Master's thesis

If you are interested in writing your bachelor- or master-thesis in cooperation with LMU/TUM and the MPA, please contact directly the researcher/s offering the project/s you are interested in. Please note that (co-)supervision from a faculty member at LMU or TUM is required, and that if your potential MPA supervisor is not a faculty at the University, he/she will discuss such arrangements with you. Also note that no financial support can be offered by MPA.
Here is a list of projects you can work on at MPA:

MODELING LARGE LYMAN-ALPHA NEBULAE. Advisors: Fabrizio Arrigoni Battaia, Seok-Jun Chang, Max Gronke

Methods:observational / computational

Description: Quasars at high redshifts are usually surrounded by large amounts of gas glowing through the Lyman-alpha line of neutral hydrogen. While the detection of these enormous (often ~100kpc across) nebulae is now — thanks to modern instruments and telescopes sucht as VLT/MUSE — common, it is yet unclear why they exist in the first place and where the energy to power them is coming from. A major hurdle to overcome is to connect theory and observations through the efficient use of radiative transfer models. In this project, you fill deal with data of z~3-4 Lyman-alpha nebulae and try to reproduce them in theoretical models. The (mis)match of these models will provide valuable insights into the gas and photon flows within the nebulae and ultimately what they can tell us about the evolution of galaxies as well as the feeding of their central supermassive black holes.

THE INFORMATION CONTENT OF STACKED SPECTRA Advisors: Seok-Jun Chang, Max Gronke

Research fields: extragalactic astronomy / circumgalactic medium

Methods: theoretical / computational

Description: Electromagnetic radiation is our primary window to observe galaxies and to constrain our theoretical models. In particular, resonant lines such as Lyman-alpha or MgII play a pivotal role in astrophysics as a tool to study low surface brightness region such as the circumgalactic medium. As the detection of a single object is so challenging, it is common practice to perform "stacking" of individual object, thus beating down the noise and enhancing the signal. However, from a theoretical perspective it is unclear what the stacking analysis does to the spectral shape or the information contained in the data. In this project, we will systematically explore the information content of individual spectra versus stacks. To do so, you will run radiative transfer simulations and assemble individual synthetic spectra, perform a stacking analysis, and build a fitting pipeline to obtain the information contained in the stacks.

METAL LINES AS PROBES OF HIGH REDSHIFT GALAXIES. Advisor: Benedetta Ciardi

Research fields: first galaxies, metal lines, simulations, observational predictions

Description: state-of-the-art radiation hydrodynamics simulations will be used to make predictions about the observability of high redshift galaxies through metal lines with the upcoming ELT telescope. The project will also be in collaboration with colleagues involved in ELT observational campaigns.

INFORMATION FIELD THEORY. Advisor: Torsten Ensslin

Master thesis on information field theory (IF), its application in astrophysics and elsewhere, and related topics are possible for students that are familiar with IFT on the level taught at my university course on IFT. For more information on IFT please see here and for the IFT lectures (script, recordings, and exercises) see here.
GALAXY EVOLUTION IN COSMIC FILAMENTS. Advisors: Daniela Galarraga-Espinoza & Guinevere Kauffmann

Matter in the Universe is assembled under the action of gravity to form a gigantic network of nodes, filaments, walls, and voids, called the cosmic web. The observable building blocks of this web are galaxies, which grow, evolve and flow from the less dense to the denser cosmic structures. During their lifetime, galaxies thus experience strong changes of cosmic environments. These are expected to affect the galaxy properties, such as their star-formation activity. While it is now well established that galaxies located in cluster environments are redder and less star-forming than those in less dense regions, the properties of galaxies in cosmic filaments has become feasible only in the past few years thanks to the advent of large surveys and to the development of filament detection techniques. Galaxy properties in filaments are thus still poorly understood. However, half of the matter in the Universe is expected to be hosted by these cosmic structures, so the study of galaxies in these environments is crucial to better understand the properties of matter in the largest scales. This Master project aims at analysing how the galaxies living in cosmic filaments are shaped by them. Is there a relation between filament gas properties and the star-formation activity of galaxies? How is the galaxy star-formation quenched in the warm/hot and moderately dense environment that is particular to filaments? The candidate will address these questions by the analysis of data from recent galaxy surveys. Guided by recent results from numerical simulations, he/she will explore in observations any potential relation between the properties of galaxies and these of cosmic filaments, which will be extracted from publicly available catalogues.
PROPERTIES OF THE FIRST GALAXIES AND REIONIZATION IN RADIATION-HYDRODYNAMICAL SIMULATIONS. Advisors: Enrico Garaldi & Benedetta Ciardi.

Enrico is a PostDoc and Benedetta is a staff member.

Research fields: first galaxies, cosmic reionization, numerical simulations

Description: the fields of galaxy formation and cosmic reionization are quickly converging. I have developed a state-of-the-art suite of simulations designed to simultaneously understand these two processes. The projects available deal either with the analysis and improvement of these simulations, or other topics related to cosmic reionization.

Example projects:

  • synthetic observations of the mean free path of ionising photons in radiation-hydrodynamical simulations
  • characterization of the CIV absorption from the first galaxies in radiation-hydrodynamical simulations
    • FORMATION PATHWAYS OF LOCAL GROUP DWARF SPHEROIDAL. Advisors: Anna Genina & Simon White.

    Dwarf spheroidal galaxies, such as those orbiting our own Milky Way, are some of the most intriguing objects in our Universe. They are the smallest galaxies that can form and are therefore sensitive probes of galaxy formation. They also are believed to be extremely dark matter dominated, making them interesting targets in the search for dark matter. The origin of the dwarf spheroidal galaxies, however, is not fully understood : they may be relics of reionization, a consequence of Milky Way’s tidal effects on bigger dwarfs, remnants of dwarf-dwarf mergers or some combination of the above. In this project, the student will study the formation and evolution of dwarf spheroidals in cosmological hydrodynamics simulations. They will then compare simulation predictions to the observed properties of Milky Way’s dwarf satellites. They will quantify the ability of state-of-the-art computational galaxy formation models to reproduce the properties of Milky Way’s dwarf spheroidal population as well as look for observational signatures which may help distinguish the formation pathways in specific cases.

    BROKEN EXPECTATIONS: THE EFFECTS OF MODELLING ASSUMPTIONS ON THE INFERRED DARK MATTER DISTRIBUTION IN DWARF GALAXIES. Advisors: Anna Genina & Simon White.

    Dwarf spheroidal galaxies are some of the most dark matter dominated objects in the Universe. This makes them promising targets in the search for dark matter. Looking for signatures of dark matter with gamma-ray telescopes requires knowledge of the dark matter distribution in dwarf spheroidals. As dark matter cannot be observed directly, the distribution is typically inferred using the motions of the stars, where full phase-space information is often unavailable. Moreover, modelling approaches most commonly employed in the literature make a number of assumptions: spherical symmetry of dwarf spheroidals, their lack of rotation and their dynamical equilibrium. All of these are known to be violated. In this project, the student will study the effects of the violation of these assumptions on the inferred dark matter distribution and thus establish realistic measurement errors that can be employed in gamma-ray data analysis, while simultaneously creating a library of simulated dwarf spheroidals on which more advanced modelling methods can be tested.

    CLUSTERING OF LYMAN-ALPHA EMITTERS AS PROBE OF COSMIC REIONIZATION. Advisors: Max Gronke & Benedetta Ciardi.

    Max is a Max Planck Research Group Leader and Benedetta is a staff member at MPA.

    Research fields: first galaxies, cosmic reionization, numerical simulations

    Description: The 'Epoch of Reionization' was the last major phase transition of the Universe and marks a frontier of research in astrophysics. In this project, you will develop a new probe which will enable us to test models of the evolution of this epoch. You will post-process state-of-the-art simulations and find out a way for observers to differentiate between different morphologies of neutral and ionized regions.

    This is a numerical/theoretical thesis.

    DOUBLE TROUBLE - MOLECULAR TURBULENT RADIATIVE MIXING LAYERS. Advisors: Max Gronke & Ryan Farber.

    Background:

  • Galaxies are in some ways similar to car engines. While a car engine combusts oxygen with hydrocarbon fuel to generate energy and exhaust, galaxies "combust" cold gas with hot gas to generate...more hot or cold gas.
  • Stars can only form from extremely cold, dense gas containing molecular coolants. Thus, whether galactic combustion ultimately generates hot gas or cold gas (and under what conditions) is crucial to understanding how galaxies form and fade.

    • Example Project:

  • Recent work by our group finds the combustion of cold molecular gas is catalyzed by the formation of a cocoon of cool neutral gas which combusts with both ambient hot gas and the molecular gas it appears to protect. However, the precise physics governing such a "double" mixing layer remains to be determined!
  • In this project, you will perform your own cutting-edge MHD simulations of turbulent radiative mixing layers.
    • A JOINT STUDY OF LYMAN-ALPHA AND IONIZING PHOTON ESCAPE. Advisors: Max Gronke & Benedetta Ciardi.

    Max is a Max Planck Research Group Leader and Benedetta is a staff member at MPA.

    Research fields: first galaxies, cosmic reionization, numerical simulations

    Description: We know that the Universe turned from neutral to ionized in the so-called 'Epoch of Reionization'. However, we do not know yet how the photons that were responsible for this era escaped their host-galaxies as they can be absorbed by gas already inside the galaxies. Luckily for astrophysics, Lyman-alpha photons are susceptible to the same gas as ionizing photons. In this project, you will run your own radiative transfer simulations to figure out a link between the escape of ionizing and Lyman-alpha photons.

    This is a numerical/theoretical thesis.

    DERIVATION OF PHYSICAL PARAMETERS FROM GALAXY SPECTRA. Advisor: Guinevere Kauffmann.

    Fitting template spectra from stellar population synthesis models to galaxy spectra to derive physical parameters such as stellar age, metallicity, dust extinction and recent star formation history, has become standard practice in the field. This project will introduce the student to the techniques used for his purpose and provide hands-on experience in coding up simple algorithms described in the literature. We will then move on to exploring some of the unsolved problems in this field, with particular emphasis on probing the stellar content in galactic environments that differ strongly from the disk of our own Milky Way.
    CONSTRAINING DUST LIFECYCLES USING GALAXY SIMULATIONS AND RESOLVED OBSERVATIONS. Advisors: Qi Li & Guinevere Kauffmann.

    Dust reshapes the observed spectral energy distribution. Understanding cosmic dust is therefore essential for our understanding of physical properties of galaxies. Models of dust processes have been recently incorporated in numerical simulations to study the dust lifecycle. These models typically implement dust formation in evolved stars, grain growth by accreting gas-phase metals, destruction via sputtering, and grain-grain collisional processes include shattering and coagulation. However, they suffer great uncertainties. Grain growth, shattering and coagulation in particular have significant impact on the predicted dust mass and grain size distributions, limiting their predicting power for galaxies with a wide range of properties. Resolved observations on dust emission and extinction in galaxies have provided an ideal proving ground for models under various physical conditions. In this project, we aim to combine these observational results with hydrodynamic simulations of galaxies to put a constraint on dust processes. We expect this project to guide the development of state-of-the-art modeling of dust for multiphase environment in the future.


    PhD thesis

    A dissertation in cooperation with MPA can be done as an individually supervised project or through participation in our PhD-programme IMPRS.

    International Max-Planck Research School (IMPRS) on Astrophysics

    In collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), the Observatory of the Ludwig Maximilians University (USM), and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), MPA offers excellent research opportunities in theoretical and observational astrophysics for IMPRS students, covering all wavelengths from radio waves to gamma rays. Students conduct their graduate studies in a very stimulating environment and have the opportunity to develop a broad background in astrophysics beyond their own dedicated research project. The MPA is one of the most renowned institutions for theoretical and computational astrophysics. Graduate students will receive comprehensive training in theoretical and observational astronomy covering the whole spectrum of research activities present in the participating institutes.

    Link to the IMPRS web pages

    You can find more information about the scientific work at MPA on the webpages of the various research areas:

        Computational Structure Formation
        Galaxy Formation and Evolution
        High Energy Astrophysics
        Physical Cosmology
        Subgalactic Astrophysics
        Information Field Theory

    Programs for PhD students:

    Max Planck PhDnet. It’s a network of Max Planck PhD students! This portal serves as a platform for exchange among doctoral researchers at Max Planck Institutes.
    Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard-Foundation. The foundation supports young female scientists with children and aims to enable them to create the freedom required to further their scientific careers.

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