My name is Daniel Cornwell and I'm a fourth year PhD student at the University of Nottingham. I'm currently supervised by Alfonso Aragon-Salamanca, Meghan Gray and Frazer Pearce and I work closely with Postdoc Ulrike Kuchner. Our work is primarily on using simulations of massive galaxy clusters using TheThreeHundred to identify the large-scale cosmic web around galaxy clusters. I am also part of the WEAVE Wide-field clusters survey science team and have spent part of my PhD working to maximize the effiency of the observational strategy. I am currently the Nottingham Postgraduate Astronomy Rep and was the organizer of our Nottingham lunchtime talks for 2022-2023. I was previously our departmental astronomy journal club host. In my spare time, I really enjoy cooking (mainly baking sweet treats). I am currently going through every country in the world in alphabetical order and cooking their national dish, (see below for some highlights). I also going to the gym, playing tennis, playing video games, reading and playing with my cat Daisy.
Work
Publication list:
Weaver, Aung & Cornwell et al., RNAAS, 7, 268, DOI
I work on bridging simulations to observations of galaxy clusters, namely using TheThreeHundred cluster simulations and the forthcoming WEAVE Wide-Field Cluster Survey (WWFCS) spectroscopic observations. WEAVE is a new multi-object spectrograph for the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope that uses a 2-degree field to take optical spectra of ~1000 targets in a single exposure. The WWFCS will observe ~20 low redshift galaxy clusters and map the cosmic web filaments in unprecedented detail.
I am interested in investigating the role that components of the cosmic web play in shaping galaxy evolution, particularly in cosmic filaments, groups and galaxy clusters. My first project featured optimization of the observational strategy of the WWFCS and forecasting the success of the WWFCS on the extraction of the cosmic web filaments around galaxy clusters. We designed mock-observations to test against filament networks that were derived from TheThreeHundred simulations and found that the network properties remain unchanged. Not only do we accurately match the cluster connectivity (number of filaments that stem from the main node and bifurcate outside of R200) to the simulated clusters, we find that using a metric denoted as the 'skeleton distance', the mock-observations accurately trace the 'true' filaments. In our second project "The probability of identifying the cosmic web environment of galaxies around clusters motivated by the Weave Wide Field Cluster Survey", we aim to classify galaxies in and around simulated galaxy clusters by their environment. To understand the success and limitations in our ability of identifying cosmic web environments, we assign probabilities for being able to classify different galaxies as a function of their stellar mass and clustercentric distance. Classifying galaxies as filament galaxies is particularly difficult, we find large galaxy to galaxy variation in these calculated probabilities. We show that we can perform better than random across all environments for all types of galaxies. Therefore, with future surveys we can draw robust conclusions from studies that investigate galaxy evolution in the context of environment. Illustration of a simulated galaxy cluster analogue to WEAVE cluster RX0058.
Since the cosmic web traces massive haloes (Cohn+22), galaxy groups are intrinsically connected to filaments. In the paper "The localization of galaxy groups in close proximity to galaxy clusters using cosmic web nodes", I examined the ability in using a topological structures extractor (DisPerSE; Sousbie 2011) to systematically locate galaxy groups in the infall region of galaxy clusters. The Figure above 1 shows an example cluster with the group and cosmic web node distribution overlaid. This test is important, detecting galaxy groups observationally is a time consuming process that often returns an incomplete sample. I found that 68% of groups match to cosmic web nodes – nodes being maxima of the density field. Furthermore, when considering the most massive groups in the cluster outskirts, the completeness jumps to 100%.
Talks
List of academic talks given:
Conference talk at 'A journey through galactic environments' meeting September 2023
Invited talk for the Dark Energy Survey GalEvo working group June 2023
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich talk for the CAST group January 2023
Invited seminar at the University of Leicester January 2023
Seminar at Harvard Center for Astrophysics Galaxy cluster group November 2022
KIAS workshop on Cosmology and Structure Formation October 2022
Short talk at the 2022 4th Wetton Workshop (University of Oxford) September 2022
Outreach and encouraging the study of STEM based subjects is very important to me. Some of the hardest questions I've been asked about science has come from primary school kids!
List of outreach activities:
Interviewed live on Notts TV regarding WEAVE's first light press release (watch video, ~8 minutes in)
Talk at Nottingham Academy Secondary School December 2022
Public talk at the Nottingham Astronomical society May 2022
Talk at Bilborough College encouraging STEM May 2022 and June 2023
Supervised two Nuffield placement students Summer 2021 (see article)
Panelist on Im a Scientist Get me out of here (see profile)
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deck.shuffle();
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}
print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';
