Cosmology seminar: Peter Laursen

Peter Laursen is a postdoc at Dark Cosmology Centre working on Lyman alpha radiative transfer

Lyman α — a window to the distant Universe

Lyman α radiation is associated with the formation of galaxies. Being often also the strongest emission line, Lyα observations are ideal for studying galaxies in their earliest phases, which usually implies observing the most distant galaxies. The fact that Lyα is a resonant line and scatter millions of times on neutral hydrogen before escaping a galaxy both makes it notoriously difficult to interpret, and a potentially excellent probe of the various physical properties that characterize a galaxy, such as kinematics, dust contents, gas masses, and star formation rates.

In this master student-friendly talk I will go through some of the physics of Lyα radiative transfer, and explain how we can extract information from Lyα observations, in spite of its complex behavior.

Organizer

Signe Riemer-Sørensen
Published Sep. 16, 2015 9:31 AM - Last modified Oct. 19, 2015 3:07 PM