Far-infrared and submm observations of galaxies

The far-infrared and submm window allows a direct study of the dusty interstellar medium in galaxies. Our group is/was deeply involved in several observational projects with the Herschel Space Observatory on dust in both nearby and distant galaxies. UGent astronomers are still involved in several Herschel key programmes and their follow-up and offspring programmes.

DustPedia: a definitive study of cosmic dust in the Local Universe

DustPedia was a FP7 project funded by the EU under the heading ‘Exploitation of space science and exploration data’. It formally ended in 2019 but the team, a collaboration of six European institutes, is still engaged to extend this projects. We are combining far-infrared and submm data on nearby galaxies with ancillary data across the electromagnetic spectrum, and are using state-of-the-art modelling tools to interpret this extensive multi-wavelength data set.

SKIRT: 3D Monte Carlo radiative transfer

SKIRT is a state-of-the-art Monte Carlo code for simulating continuum radiation transfer in dusty astrophysical systems. The code features a wealth of built-in geometries, light source spectra, dust characterizations, dust grids, and detectors, in addition to various mechanisms for importing models generated by hydrodynamical simulations. The code is publicly available, and is being used by both our team and external users on a variety of applications. We are also involved in the development of new Monte Carlo techniques and radiative transfer benchmarking effort.

Synthetic data from cosmological hydrodynamical simulations

An important application of SKIRT is the calculation of synthetic multi-wavelength images, SEDs and data cubes for galaxies from hydrodynamical simulations, in which the important effects of dust attenuation and emission are properly accounted for. This generation of synthetic data is required for detailed apples-to-apples comparison between the simulated and observed universe. Our team works with the most advanced cosmological hydrodynamics simulations, including EAGLE, IllustrisTNG and AURIGA.

Instrumentation for ground-based and space telescopes

Our team is involved in the development of new instruments for several forthcoming telescopes (mainly at the level of the science team). Given our scientific expertise, we are mainly involved in infrared instruments, such as MIRI (the mid-infrared instrument on the forthcoming JWST), METIS (the mid-infrared instrument for the European ELT), and SPICA (a far-infrared mission proposed to ESA/JAXA). The team is also involved in the preparation of the science program for the next generation X-ray mission Athena, and the dark energy mission Euclid.