Welcome
Group Research Interests
The primary goal of our research group is to understand the formation mechanisms, growth and demographics of massive black holes. Massive black holes (MBH > 10^6 Msolar) populate the centres of almost all massive galaxies but their origin is unknown.
Our group is active in using a variety of methods (analytical, semi-analytical and full numerical) to probe different aspects of this problem.
Below you can see a movie we created from Enzo simulations showing the formation of very massive objects in a high-z galaxy. It may be that very massive stars like these were the ultimate progenitors of the massive black holes we observe in galactic centres.
Our group is active in using a variety of methods (analytical, semi-analytical and full numerical) to probe different aspects of this problem.
Below you can see a movie we created from Enzo simulations showing the formation of very massive objects in a high-z galaxy. It may be that very massive stars like these were the ultimate progenitors of the massive black holes we observe in galactic centres.
Our Funders
Group Members
Dr. John Brennan
John is a postdoctoral researcher in our group working on developing the exascale class code Enzo-E and on applying advanced machine learning techniques to predict both star and black hole formation.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/john-brennan
John is a postdoctoral researcher in our group working on developing the exascale class code Enzo-E and on applying advanced machine learning techniques to predict both star and black hole formation.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/john-brennan
Hannah O'Brennan
Hannah is a final year PhD student in our group. Hannah's research is on trying to predict the number density of massive black holes (or massive black hole hosting haloes) in the Universe. She achieves this both through sophisticated analytical models and hydrodynamical simulations.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/hannah-obrennan
Hannah is a final year PhD student in our group. Hannah's research is on trying to predict the number density of massive black holes (or massive black hole hosting haloes) in the Universe. She achieves this both through sophisticated analytical models and hydrodynamical simulations.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/hannah-obrennan
Joe McCaffrey
Joe is a third year PhD student in our group. Joe's research is on understanding the dynamics of massive black holes and clusters in the early Universe. Early galaxies are expected to be small in LambdaCDM and somewhat chaotic making understanding the early dynamics of massive black holes important - particular when trying to predict their merger rates for LISA. Joe has also worked on connecting simulations of early galaxies with JWST observations.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/joe-mccaffrey
Joe is a third year PhD student in our group. Joe's research is on understanding the dynamics of massive black holes and clusters in the early Universe. Early galaxies are expected to be small in LambdaCDM and somewhat chaotic making understanding the early dynamics of massive black holes important - particular when trying to predict their merger rates for LISA. Joe has also worked on connecting simulations of early galaxies with JWST observations.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/joe-mccaffrey
Saoirse Ward
Saoirse is a third year PhD student in our group. Saoirse uses a combination of high resolution dark matter only simulation and semi-analytic models to predict the demographics of massive black holes at both high redshift and low redshift.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/saoirse-ward
Saoirse is a third year PhD student in our group. Saoirse uses a combination of high resolution dark matter only simulation and semi-analytic models to predict the demographics of massive black holes at both high redshift and low redshift.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/saoirse-ward
Dr. Lewis Prole
Lewis received his PhD from the University of Cardiff in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Paul Clark. Lewis is an expert in hydrodynamical simulations of the first stars.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/lewis-prole
Lewis received his PhD from the University of Cardiff in 2023 under the supervision of Dr. Paul Clark. Lewis is an expert in hydrodynamical simulations of the first stars.
https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/lewis-prole
Daxal Hemendrakumar Mehta
Daxal joined our group in September 2023 and is working on understanding the
growth of light seed black holes in early galaxies. He does this using the moving
mesh code Arepo.
Daxal joined our group in September 2023 and is working on understanding the
growth of light seed black holes in early galaxies. He does this using the moving
mesh code Arepo.
Pelle Van de Bor
Pelle joined our group in September 2023 and is working on both implementing feedback from the first stars in a large cosmological simulation and on using machine learning techniques to improve primordial chemistry solvers.
Pelle joined our group in September 2023 and is working on both implementing feedback from the first stars in a large cosmological simulation and on using machine learning techniques to improve primordial chemistry solvers.