Speaker
Description
To understand how galaxies form and evolve, we must first contend with dust. Though it makes up only a tiny fraction of a galaxy's mass, interstellar dust acts as a cosmic veil, absorbing starlight and re-emitting it at longer wavelengths. This process, known as attenuation, significantly alters the spectra we observe with instruments like JWST. Until now, large-volume cosmological simulations have struggled to trace dust evolution in a self-consistent manner due to high computational costs.
In this talk, I will present results from COLIBRE, a new suite of state-of-the-art cosmological simulations which for the first time incorporate a multi-grain live dust model. By pairing galaxies from COLIBRE with the radiative transfer code SKIRT, we obtain mock spectra that allow us to study the evolution of dust attenuation through cosmic time. After validating our model against current observations, we use it to disentangle the two primary drivers of the attenuation curve: dust-star geometry and grain composition. These results provide a critical framework for interpreting the next generation of high-redshift observations.
| Talk category | NOVA Network 1 |
|---|---|
| PhD relevance | 3rd |
