Project at HIAS

Turbulence in Galactic Halos

While in Hamburg, Yuval Birnboim will develop and implement new numerical techniques for modeling turbulence using sub-grid techniques in hydrodynamic simulations. Due to its inherently multi-scale nature, turbulence cannot be fully resolved in large-scale simulations and must be approximated in sub-grid. Birnboim will adapt state-of-the-art Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models—commonly used in engineering for aerodynamic and hydrodynamic analysis—to astrophysical contexts, where they have seen limited application.

His Tandem Partner is Marcus Brüggen, Professor of Extragalactic Astrophysics at the University of Hamburg.

Biography

He completed his B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics at Tel Aviv University, followed by a Ph.D. in Astrophysics in 2006 under the supervision of Prof. Avishai Dekel, focusing on galaxy formation and evolution. He then conducted postdoctoral research as an ITC Fellow at Harvard University. Since 2019, he has served as an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. His research group, which investigates the circumgalactic medium and turbulence, includes senior scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students.

Yuval Birnboim’s research addresses fundamental questions in galaxy formation and the role of the galactic halo in shaping galaxy evolution. He studies how gas accretes onto galaxies and halos, the thermodynamic and hydrodynamic properties of halo gas, and the turbulent structure and stability of these environments. To bridge theory and observation, his group employs large-scale hydrodynamic simulations, analytic modeling, and advanced non-equilibrium atomic physics to understand the state of halo gas.

Yuval Birnboim’s HIAS Fellowship is provided by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the federal and state funds acquired by the University of Hamburg in the framework of its Excellence Strategy.