Ethan
NadlerHe/His
Ethan Nadler is a joint postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Observatories and USC. His research combines cosmological simulations, particle theory, and observations of the smallest galaxies and cosmic structures to understand the microphysical properties of dark matter. He also works at the interface of data and dark matter theory with collaborations including the Dark Energy Survey, Dark Energy Science Collaboration, and Satellites Around Galactic Analogs Survey.
Overview
My research lies at the intersection of near-field cosmology, dark matter theory, and computational astrophysics. I am particularly interested in modeling the dark matter distribution within the Milky Way, including its visible tracers: ultra-faint dwarf galaxies and stellar streams. To this end, I am developing the first suites of cosmological simulations with histories that specifically resemble the Milky Way in various dark matter and cosmological models.
In parallel, I am building new analytic models for the evolution of rare astrophysical systems. Existing simulations and semi-analytic models are prohibitively slow when targeting outliers, such as high-redshift galaxies and supermassive black holes. With collaborators at Carnegie and USC, I have shown that models based on constrained random processes can yield millions of realizations of the earliest observable galaxies at the same expense as a single realization from a traditional model. We are using these techniques to study the formation of the first galaxies and the Milky Way.