Nathaniel Starkman
I study the dynamics of star clusters orbiting galaxies to understand the distribution and nature of dark matter. When an orbiting group of stars is torn apart by its host galaxy’s gravity, the group’s debris forms long structures called stellar streams that are exquisitely sensitive to the gravity of the galaxy. Since much of this gravity is sourced by the dark matter, by studying stellar streams we can map the dark matter in a galaxy.
As a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, I extended the detected lengths of stellar streams, developed cutting edge machine learning algorithms to characterize and model stellar streams, and refined models of the dark matter in the Milky Way. I also did research on direct dark matter detection, constraining models of exotic dark matter, as well as early universe cosmology, studying the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Now, as a Brinson Prize Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I’m working to extend my stellar stream research beyond the Milky Way to a cosmological context, characterizing stellar streams of distant galaxies to map their dark matter.