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Joshua Wall Graduate Student College of Arts and Sciences – The linked image cannot be displayed. The
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Physics Department MODEST 2015 (Modelling and Observing Dense Stellar Systems) I attended MODEST 2015 in Concepcion, Chile with my PhD advisor Professor Stephen
McMillan. MODEST is the largest annual conference specifically on star clusters for both
observers and theorist in the field. At MODEST 2015 I gave both a “shotgun talk” and a poster
presentation titled “Simulating Young Massive Cluster Formation.” During the presentation I
described how my collaborators and I are investigating how star clusters form using large
magnetohydrodynamic simulations of gas which collapses to form stars. Then both the gas and
stars interact with each other through gravity, radiation, stellar winds and supernovae. The
research is still in development, however once we have finished developing the codes it will be
one of the most realistic simulations of star forming regions ever conducted. During the poster
presentation I also spoke with many influential members of the star cluster community, such as
Prof Sverre Aarseth, Prof Douglas Heggie and Prof Pavel Kroupa. Several of these conversations
led to possible new areas for me to explore in my research, such as attempting to model the
specific star forming region at Doradus 30.
I also attended numerous talks all week during the conference. Talks given by observers and the
discussions afterwards led to more ideas about how to structure simulation data to look like
observational data. And talks by other scientists who are working with simulations resulted in a
future collaborations. There are several groups in Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands and
China who are working on projects related to my area of research. Specifically, I was invited to
visit at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom by Prof. Mark Gieles. His group is
investigating galaxy formation using hydrodynamics codes similar to what I have implemented
for star cluster formation. I also formed a collaboration with Dr. Nathan Leigh at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York. My advisor Prof. McMillan has invited him to visit
Drexel this year. Dr. Leigh is investigating the initial mass function of star clusters, which will
be a directly measurable outcome of my work.
At the end of the conference the next MODEST meeting was announced (MODEST 2015a),
which will be in December of this year. I was cordially invited to come and present again.. At
MODEST 2015a I intend to either present a talk or poster session on the latest developments of
my investigation of star cluster formation.