Thomas Rintoul

(he/him)

Overview

I am a PhD student in Astrophysics, using simulations to study the evolution of massive galaxies. My work focuses on the Circumgalactic Medium (CGM) around massive galaxies - a large, diffuse gaseous region that plays a vital role in shaping galaxy evolution. I work with cosmological simulations from the SURGE (Simulating the Universe in Refined Galactic Environments) project, an extension of the Auriga project.

My first PhD research project seeks to determine the role that magnetic fields play in the ram pressure stripping of satellite galaxies. Ram pressure stripping is the removal of gas from a galaxy due to pressure from a surrounding medium - in this case, the hot gas of the CGM.
We determined that in massive satellites, magnetic fields can play an important role in suppressing the fluid instabilities that enable ram pressure stripping - significantly reducing the rate of stripping. Additionally, magnetic fields suppress turbulent mixing between stripped material and the hotter ambient gas of the CGM. This inhibits the distribution of heavy elements (known as metals to astronomers) into the hot gas and suppressed condensation of hot gas onto the cool material.
We used cosmological zoom-in simulations of 3 massive galaxy haloes in this work, comparing versions of the simulations run with and without magnetic fields with no other changes made - a type of experiment not possible with observations.

My second project will explore the role of anisotropic thermal conduction (the flow of heat due to electrons streaming along magnetic field lines). We will run a new suite of zoom simulations using the IllustrisTNG galaxy formation model.

I am funded by the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Advanced Computing (AIMLAC). My work falls primarily within the "Advanced Computing" stream of the CDT with my focus on big data and high performance computing (HPC).

I am also a member of the KILOGAS collaboration - a large galaxy survey using the Atacama Large sub-Millimetre Array (ALMA) to study molecular gas in galaxies at low redshift. I lead a project in this collaboration exploring gas kinematic asymmetries in the KILOGAS sample and comparing this to large-volume cosmological simulations.