Research Group

Prof Lucio Mayer - SNF Professor

Lucio Mayer Institute for Theoretical Physics
University of Zürich
Winterthurerstr. 190
8057 Zürich
Switzerland
+41 44 635 6197, Office: 36 L 08
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Research Overview

Our group specializes in studying a variety of processes in the area of structure formation, from the scale of galaxies to supermassive black holes, stars and planets.
We focus on understanding the role of gasdynamics and radiation in building and determining the evolution of cosmic structures. Our main tool of investigation is represented by numerical simulations on large parallel supercomputers. These simulations allow to model representative pockets of our Universe, of our Galaxy or of a planetary system, solving the coupled time-dependent nonlinear physical equations that govern their evolution.
We employ both particle-based and grid-based methods. Our main code is the N-Body-SPH code GASOLINE, which was initially developed at the University of Washington. Its flexibility allows it to be applied to problems as different as the formation of disk galaxies and the formation of giant planets. The results of several of our on-going projects are relevant to the forthcoming largest observational facilities that will study the Universe at long wavelengths, such as ALMA and JWST, as well as to gravitational wave experiments such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA).

Here are the main on-going projects of our group with project leaders highlighted

  • The formation of giant planets via disk instability (Mayer)
  • Rapid formation and coalescence of binary supermassive black holes in gaseous nuclear disks (Mayer)
  • Coalescence of supermassive black holes in gas-rich minor mergers (Callegari)
  • Formation of bulgeless disk galaxies in the cold dark matter Universe (Callegari)
  • Formation of protostellar disks (Hayfield)
  • Star formation in the Galactic Center (Hayfield and Dr. Michela Mapelli)
  • Merger-driven disk formation (Coppola)
  • Gravitational wave emission from star clusters (Huwley, with Dr. Michela Mapelli and Prof. Philippe Jetzer)

Projects with collaborators at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich

  • Formation of brown dwarfs via protostellar disk fragmentation (with Dr. Aaron Boley, UniZH)
  • Code comparison on radiative transfer in protoplanetary disks (with Dr. Aaron Boley, UniZH)
  • Sinking of supermassive black holes in circumnuclear disk of stars; linking large scale collisionless evolution with the small scale collisional regime (with Dr. Michela Mapelli, UniZH)
  • Evolution of galaxies in groups (with PhD student Robert Feldmann and Prof. Marcella Carollo at ETH Zurich)
  • Gravitational instability as the origin of turbulence in galactic disks (with PhD student Oscar Agertz, Prof. George Lake and Prof. Ben Moore at the University of Zurich)