Simon D. M. White
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
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Primary Section: 12, Astronomy Secondary Section: 13, Physics Membership Type:
International Member
(elected 2007)
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Research Interests
My scientific interests lie in the origin and evolution of structure in the Universe, in particular, in understanding how galaxies form. I have been heavily involved in the development of numerical simulations as a practical tool to investigate these issues. Such simulations allow physical models for the many processes involved to be explored in a sufficiently realistic manner that detailed comparison with observation is possible. A major question in this field is the nature of the unseen dark matter which appears to be the dominant component of all objects larger than individual galaxies. I have spent much of my career developing and testing the hypothesis that this material is made of a new type of elementary particle, so-called Cold Dark Matter.
