Higher Degree by Research Application Portal

Astronomers have long been discussing the origin of the Galactic oldest star clusters (known as `globular clusters’; GCs), since they were discovered about 400 years ago.  However, it is still theoretically unclear how such old (10-12 Gyr years old) clusters were formed during the formation of the Galaxy. In particular,  the origin of their chemical abundance patters (e.g.,  CNO)  is yet to be fully understood. Since the abundance patterns have fossil information about the Galaxy,  understanding their origins can also lead to the better understanding of the Galaxy formation.

 This project aims at revealing the formation processes of GCs in the early Galaxy through a novel combination of supercomputer simulations and new data analysis based on machine learning and AI. A student in this project performs numerical simulations of GC formation from fractal molecular clouds with the total masses of 1-10 million solar masses  during the Galaxy formation. The student investigates (i) how molecular gas can be converted into new stars and how the new stars become a massive star cluster and (ii) how chemical evolution of forming GCs depend on the details of various feedback effects from supernovae, AGB stars, and neutron star mergers. These numerical simulations will be compared with the corresponding latest observations.

Kenji bekki :  kenji.bekki@uwa.edu.au

Master or honour degree