Max-Planck-Institut Für Astrophysik Annual Report 2012
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Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik Annual Report 2012 Contents 1 General Information 3 1.1 AbriefhistoryoftheMPA ........................... ....... 3 1.2 CurrentMPAfacilities . ......... 4 1.3 2012attheMPA.................................... .... 5 1.3.1 Retirement of Wolfgang Hillebrandt . .......... 5 1.3.2 Thenewbuilding................................ .... 6 2 Scientific Highlights 11 2.1 SDSS-III finds a large population of massive galaxies still alive eight billion years after theBigBang ......................................... 11 2.2 Trojan horses within molecular clouds: How do a few massive stars determine the fate of awholegalaxy?...................................... ... 13 2.3 Gas in Galaxies at the End of their Lives - Food for New Stars .............. 14 2.4 Whatmakesagalaxyadiskoraspheroid? . .......... 16 2.5 First Light for the Millennium Run Observatory . .............. 17 2.6 Lyman Alpha Emitters around the Epoch of Reionization: TipoftheIceberg . 22 2.7 Super-massive black hole inflates giant bubble . ................ 23 2.8 Globular star clusters: The survivors of a massacre 13 billionyearsago. 24 2.9 CosmicVibrationsfromNeutronStars . ............ 26 2.10 Infrared Beacons in the Universe - Red Supergiant Stars and the Chemical Composition ofGalaxies ......................................... .. 27 2.11 Chemical composition of old, metal-poor stars poses newquestions .. .. .. .. .. 30 2.12 Smashing white dwarfs: explaining the brightness of cosmicexplosions . 31 2.13 Cosmic Warming by the First Quasars: Did the earliest supermassive black holes slow thegrowthoftherest?................................ ..... 33 2.14 A nova origin of the gas cloud at the Galactic Center? . ................ 35 3 Publications and Invited Talks 37 3.1 PublicationsinJournals . .......... 37 3.1.1 Publicationsthat appearedin 2012(217) . ........... 37 3.1.2 Publicationsacceptedin2012(50) . .......... 49 3.2 Publicationsinproceedings . ........... 51 3.2.1 Publications in proceedings appeared in 2012 (76) . .............. 51 3.2.2 Publications available as electronic file only . ............... 57 3.3 Invited review talks at international meetings . ................. 57 3.4 Colloquiatalks .................................. ....... 59 3.5 Publictalksandpopulararticles . ............ 60 3.6 Lectures........................................ ..... 61 4 Personnel 62 4.1 Scientificstaffmembers . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ........ 62 4.1.1 Staffnews...................................... .. 63 4.2 PhDThesis2012/Diplomathesis2012 . ........... 63 4.2.1 Ph.D.theses2012 ............................... .... 63 4.2.2 Diplomatheses2012 ............................. ..... 64 4.2.3 PhDThesis(workbeingundertaken). ......... 65 1 4.3 Visitingscientists.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .......... 72 1 General Information 1.1 A brief history of the MPA instrumental activities carried out in other Max- Planck institutes. From its inception the MPA has The Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, called had an internationally-recognized numerical astro- the MPA for short, was founded in 1958 under the physics program that is unparalleled by any other directorship of Ludwig Biermann. It was first es- institution of similar size. tablished as an offshoot of the Max-Planck-Institut In recent years, activities at the MPA have di- für Physik, which at that time had just moved from versified. They now address a much broader range Göttingen to Munich. In 1979, in the course of of topics and include a variety of data analysis ac- plans to move the headquarters of the European tivities while still maintaining a substantial em- Southern Observatory from Geneva to Garching, phasis on theory and numerics. Resources are Biermann’s successor, Rudolf Kippenhahn, relo- channeled into areas where new instrumental or cated the MPA to its current site. The MPA be- computational capabilities are expected to lead came fully independent in 1991. Kippenhahn re- to rapid developments. Active areas of current tired shortly thereafter and this led to a period of research include stellar evolution, stellar atmo- uncertainty, which ended in 1994 with the appoint- spheres, accretion phenomena, nuclear and par- ment of Simon White as director. The subsequent ticle astrophysics, supernova physics, astrophysi- appointments of Rashid Sunyaev (1995) and Wolf- cal fluid dynamics, high-energy astrophysics, ra- gang Hillebrandt (1997) as directors at the insti- diative processes, the structure, formation and evo- tute, together with adoption of new set of statutes lution of galaxies, gravitational lensing, the large- in 1997, allowed the MPA to adopt a system of scale structure of the Universe and physical cos- collegial leadership by a Board of Directors. The mology. Several previous research areas (solar sys- Managing Directorship rotates every three years, tem physics, the quantum chemistry of astrophys- with Simon White in post for the period 2012-2014. ical molecules, general relativity and gravitational In 2007 Martin Asplund arrived as a new di- wave astronomy) have been substantially reduced rector but, for personal reasons, returned to The over the last two decades. Australian National University in 2011. He re- mains linked to the institute as external Scientific Since 2001 the MPA has been part of the In- Member, in addition to the other external Scientific ternational Max-Planck Research School in Astro- Members: Riccardo Giacconi, Rolf Kudritzki and physics, a joint initiative between the Max Planck Werner Tscharnuter. In 2012 Eiichiro Komatsu ar- Society and the Ludwig-Maximilians University of rived from the University of Texas, as a new di- Munich. About 70 PhD students participate in the rector strengthen the institute’s research into the school of any given time, most of them at the MPE beginnings and the evolution of the universe. Also or the MPA. This has sustantially increased and in- in 2012, Wolfgang Hillebrandt retired and a search ternationalised the graduate student body at MPA is currently under way for new director to replace over the last decade. Currently about 25 students him. at MPA participate in the IMPRS. The MPA was founded specifically as an insti- Since 1995 the Wissenschaftliche Institutsrat tute for theoretical astrophysics. Its original goal (WIR) has met regularly about 6 times a year to was to develop the theoretical concepts and numer- discuss all academic, social and administrativ is- ical algorithms needed to study the structure and sues affecting the institute. This consists of all the evolution of stars (including the sun), the dynamics permanent scientific staff and elected representa- and chemistry of the interstellar medium, the inter- tivs of the postdocs, students and support staff. action of hot, dilute plasmas with magnetic fields It acts as the main formal conduit for discussion and energetic particles, and the calculation of tran- and communication within the institute and ad- sition probabilities and cross–sections for astro- vises the directors on all substantive policy issues. physical processes in rarefied media. These efforts Subcommittees of the WIR organise the hiring of led to broad international cooperation and were postdocs and students, the monitoring os students clearly differentiated from the observational and progress, and other institutional activity. 3 4 1. General Information Various aspects of the MPA’s structure have storage facilities (also for backups), and the gate- historical origins. Its administration (which at way to the German sience and educational high- present is housed primarily in the main MPA build- speed network backbone. RZG also hosts a number ing but will move to a new extension building in of mid-range computers owned by MPA. Presently, early 2013) is shared with the neighboring, but sub- two Linux-clusters with 756 and over 2500 proces- stantially larger MPI für extraterrestrische Physik sor cores respectively are located at RZG, and are (MPE). The library in the MPA building also used for moderately parallel codes. In addition, a serves the two institutes jointly. All major astro- dedicated system of 156 cores, about 650 GB mem- nomical books and periodicals are available. The ory and 180 TB disk space is used, among other MPA played an important role in founding the purposes, for data analysis of the Millenium simu- Max-Planck Society’s Garching Computer Centre lations. This system also offers public web services (the RZG; the principal supercomputing centre of to access and use the Millenium Database. the Society as a whole). MPA scientists have free MPA’s computer system guarantees that every access to the RZG and are among the top users user has full access to all facilities needed, and of the facilities there. Ten posts at the comput- that there is no need for users to perform mainte- ing centre, including that of its director, are for- nance or system tasks. All desks are equipped with mally part of the MPA’s roster. This arrangement modern PCs, running under one operating system has worked well and results in a close and produc- (Linux) and a fully transparent file system, with tive working relationship between the MPA and full data security and integrity guaranteed through the RZG. multiple backups, firewalls, and the choice of the operating system. With this approach MPA is achieving virtually 1.2 Current MPA facilities uninterrupted, continuous service. Since desktop PCs are not personalized, hardware failures are Computational facilities quickly repaired by a complete exchange of the computer.