The focus of my research is the interstellar medium (ISM) in nearby galaxy. And when I say nearby, I mean everything within 20 Mpc – so the light we observe has been traveling for millions of years to reach us. At such distances, even the mightiest galaxies appear as small dots in the sky, and powerful telescopes are required to study them. The ionized gas that I am particularly interested in emits a lot of emission lines, and that makes the instrument MUSE at the Very Large Telescope in Chile the essential workhorse for this work. In combination with other telescopes like HST, it is possible to connect those clouds to their stellar source of the radiation. Below is a brief overview of the projects I have been involved in, with links to the published results.
List of Publications
Here is a list of articles I have been involved in over the last few years.
Current projects
Characterizing emission line nebulae with PHANGS–MUSE
I am currently doing my PhD in the Baryon Cycle in Nearby Galaxies group of Kathryn Kreckel. For my work I combine various state-of-the art telescopes like MUSE/VLT and HST to study the ionized gas in nearby galaxies.
Stellar associations powering H II regions
II. Escape fractions
Using the previously published matched catalogue, we measure the escape fraction of H II regions.
Stellar associations powering H II regions
I. Defining an evolutionary sequence
We create a catalogue of matched H II regions and stellar associations.
PNLF distances for 19 galaxies observed by PHANGS–MUSE
We use MUSE to measure the distance to 19 nearby galaxies with the planetary nebula luminosity function.
Previous work
Self enrichment in feedback regulated clouds
Before this I completed my Master in the Star Formation Group of Ralf Klessen. Based on the 1D feedback code WARPFIELD, I simulated how the abundances in H II evolve over time.
Dynamic stirring of planetesimals
I did my Bachelor in the Planet Formation Group of Kees Dullemond. I used the N-body integrator Mercury6 to test if the conditions in the early solar system were sufficient to form chondrules by high velocity impacts.
