University of Rochester, Computational Astrophysics Group

Principal Investigator

​Adam Frank, Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

Group Web Page

AstroBEAR webpage: ​http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~bearclaw/

Meeting webpages: MeetingPage

Post-Doctoral Researchers

​Martin Huarte Espinosa is studying the MHD evolution and interaction of proto-planetary nebulae.

Graduate Students

​Jonathan Carroll is studying molecular cloud turbulence and high-level numerical methods development.

​Shule Li is studying thermal diffusion in the multi-mode Rayleigh-Taylor instability problem.

​Erica Kaminski is studying MHD clumps as well as working on the documentation, testing and debugging of AstroBEAR.

Undergraduate Students

​Bin Lin is working on developing test modules for oscillatory instability of radiative shocks.

Former Post-docs

​Timothy Dennis has studied proto-planetary nebular morphology, the temporal evolution of post-AGB winds, and the morphology of HH jets.

Former Grads

​Andrew Cunningham (LLNL) has studied turbulent jets, molecular fossil cavities, and MHD AMR numerical algorithms in two and three dimensions.

​Kristopher Yirak (LANL) has studied heterogeneity in stellar jets, the effect of jets on self-gravitationally-bound systems, the single- and multi-mode Rayleigh-Taylor instability, and other laboratory astrophysics.

​Michael Laski has studied MHD clump physics.

​Lan Gao has studied the ablation-supported Rayleigh-Taylor instability.

Former Undergrads

​Brandon Shroyer (Computer Science Dept., University of Rochester) is working on MHD clump physics, revamping AstroBEAR's development process, software parallelization, elliptic solvers in AMR, standardized AMR file I/O, and visualization subroutines.

​Matthew Noyes (NASA) assisted in the parallelization of AstroBEAR's simulation algorithms, as well as performing testing, debugging, and documentation of the software. Matt also helped to greatly improve the astrobear wiki.

​Edward Schroeder assisted Kristopher Yirak in his exploration of the parameter space of Herbig-Haro Objects.

​Sean Tanny (​Rice University, University of Toledo) work on radiative cooling studies with AstroBEAR under Professor Pat Hartigan at Rice University.

REU Students

2011: ​Bin Lin did work related to the bullets vs jets models of proto-planetary nebulae formation research being undertaken primarily by Martin Huarte Espinosa.

2009: ​Ed Schroeder did further work related to the clumped jet research being undertaken primarily by Kristopher Yirak.

2008: ​Chaz Ruggieri did work related to the clumped jet research being undertaken primarily by Kristopher Yirak.