Simulating star formation triggered by cloud/cloud collisions at Cardiff University on FindAPhD.com

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Prof A Whitworth No more applications being accepted Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

About the Project

Cloud/cloud collisions are a frequent occurrence in disc galaxies like our own Milky Way. Such collisions determine the statistical properties of the cloud population, and the internal structures of individual clouds. In addition, collisions may trigger the formation of clusters of stars, which then expand and disperse. The aim will be to construct realistic clouds, simulate collisions between them, using either the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics code GANDALF, or the Moving Mesh code AREPO, and follow the processes that lead to the formation of new stars (in particular the role of filaments in assembling the material that ends up in stars, the characteristics of these filaments, how they compare with the different filamentary structures observed in nature, and what distinguishes these filaments from ones that do not spawn stars); we will also investigate what circumstances lead to the formation of massive stars, how star clusters and residual gas disperse, and what distinctive observational signatures these processes generate.
The student will become expert in interstellar gas dynamics and the associated chemical and radiative processes, triggered star formation, numerical hydrodynamics and stellar dynamics.

The start date for this project is 01/10/2018.

Funding Notes

- Full UK/EU tuition fees
- Stipend at UK Research Council minimum (UK applicants only)
- Research Training Support Grant (RTSG) are also available. There are other opportunities and benefits available to studentship holders, including an overseas fieldwork allowance (if applicable), internship opportunities, overseas institutional visits and other small grants.
The successful applicant must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK/EU and have been ordinarily resident in the UK/EU for at least three years prior to the start of the studentship

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Simulating star formation triggered by cloud/cloud collisions

Cardiff University Cardiff School of Physics and Astronomy