Higher Degree by Research Application Portal

The most massive stars conclude their lives in dramatic supernovae, powerful enough to eject gas out of their host galaxies. This expelled gas forms what we call "galactic winds". These winds play a pivotal role in galaxy evolution: by removing gas from the disc, they reduce the material available to form new stars. According to theory, they are one of the most important mechanisms regulating galaxy growth.

But galactic winds remain hard to understand, even after decades of study. They contain gas in multiple temperatures and states, and their emission is often 100 to 1000 times fainter than that of the galaxy itself. Studying them requires cutting-edge, multi-wavelength observations able to pick up this faint, multi-phase emission.

This PhD project will combine two approaches. It will use recent multi-wavelength resolved observations, including optical integral-field spectroscopy from VLT/MUSE and millimetre data from ALMA, to map the different gas phases in the winds of nearby galaxies. It will simultaneously make use of COLIBRE, a recent cosmological hydrodynamical simulation suite capable of modelling these different gas phases more realistically than previous generations.

By using observations to test and inform the simulations, the goal is to refine our understanding of these galactic winds, in order to better characterise one of the most important, and most poorly understood, processes in galaxy evolution.

The Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is a program of independent, supervised research that is assessed solely on the basis of a thesis, sometimes including a creative work component, that is examined externally. The work presented for a PhD must be a substantial and original contribution to scholarship, demonstrating mastery of the subject of interest as well as an advance in that field of knowledge. 

Visit the course webpage for full details of this course including admission requirements, course rules and the relevant CRICOS code/s.