Ionising flux from massive galaxies in the Epoch of Reionisation

After the hot Big Bang the Universe expanded and cooled, eventually turning the primordial soup of particles into a sea of neutral gas, thereby starting the cosmic 'Dark Ages'. The light produced by the First Stars during the subsequent 'Cosmic Dawn' gradually ionized the universe again and ended the Dark Ages. This transition, called Cosmic Reionization had profound effects on the formation and character of the early cosmological structures and left deep impressions on subsequent galaxy and star formation.

This project focuses on running and analysing the results from state-of-the-art, massively-parallel simulations of this process, on some of world's largest computers, with the aim to infer the observable features produced by these first structures. These results will be used for interpreting the data from the LOFAR observatory and making predictions for Square Kilometre Array (SKA).

The student will be closely involved with both of these Epoch of Reionization experiments as Sussex is leading the numerical simulation work for them.