Mr Dipanjan Mitra

My work is focused on investigating the formation and evolution of massive elliptical galaxies, and of the cluster core they inhabit, by contributing to the analysis and interpretation of both existing and new data. The plan consists in developing a python code that will allow me to simulate the statistical properties of dust-obscured star-forming galaxies (i.e. the progenitors of present-day ellipticals) to be compared with both existing and new data. This will be achieved by starting from the Cai et al. 2013 analytic model for these galaxies: the outcome of the equations of the model will be combined, in a consistent way and using a Monte-Carlo approach, with a library of spectral energy distributions; then dark matter halos in N-body simulations will be populated with the simulated galaxies. The final product will be a 3D simulated distribution of dust-obscured star-forming galaxies with statistical properties (i.e. number counts, redshift distributions) consistent with current data. The simulations will then be used to interpret new observations (e.g. mm-surveys with the TolTEC camera on the Large Millimeter Telescope), to make forecasts for future surveys (e.g. Euclid, SO, etc.) and to drive the science cases for future proposals for Far-InfraRed (FIR) space probes (e.g. as envisaged in the NASA  Astro2020 Decal review).