About me
I'm Cian (pronounced "k+ian"), an astrophysics PhD candidate at MIT.
I work on understanding the particle nature of dark matter using strong lensing and stellar kinematics, and bridging the gap between cosmological simulations and real observations.
Strong Lensing DemoMove a lens mass to warp background galaxies into Einstein rings and giant arcs, which can be used to contrain dark matter properties.
Move a lens mass to warp background galaxies into Einstein rings and giant arcs, which can be used to contrain dark matter properties.
When a massive object sits between us and a distant source, its gravity bends the light into arcs and rings. Because the bending depends only on the mass of the lens and geometry, it is one of the cleanest ways to map dark matter.
Click a preset or load your own source image by pasting (Ctrl+V / Cmd+V) or dragging an image onto the left panel. Click the right panel to move the lens.
Dark Matter Self-Interaction DemoWatch a brightest-cluster galaxy oscillate in a dark matter potential well and build a mock offset distribution to constrain σ/m.
Watch a brightest-cluster galaxy oscillate in a dark matter potential well and build a mock offset distribution to constrain σ/m.
Dark Matter (DM) is the invisible but dominant mass component in the structures of our universe, with approximately 10 times more dark matter in our galaxy than matter we could see. The interaction properties of dark matter with itself remain largely a mystery, but looking at brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs), which are large galaxies sitting in the centers of the largest gravitationally bound structures in the universe (known as galaxy clusters), we can get some insights into these mysterious properties.
Below is a simplified model of a BCG oscillating in the potential of a galaxy cluster, and how the typical distance away from the cluster center changes with different dark matter self-interaction properties.