Formation of supermassive black hole seeds in the first galaxies

Research by Fernando Becerra

Publications

My research focuses mainly on the study of the formation of supermassive black hole seeds in the early Universe, but my interests span a wide range of other astrophysical phenomena such as structure formation in alternative dark matter universes, star formation in isolated disk galaxies, and gas fragmentation during mergers. Given the nature of these problems, my approach is to perform and analyze hydrodynamical simulations using numerical codes like Enzo, Gadget, and Arepo. A complete record of my publications can be found on ADS or arXiv.

  1. "Galaxy Formation with BECDM -- II. Cosmic Filaments and First Galaxies"
    Mocz, P., Fialkov, A., Vogelsberger, M., Becerra, F., et al., MNRAS, 494, 2027.
    Links to the article: MNRAS, ADS, and arXiv
  2. "First Star-Forming Strcutures in Fuzzy Cosmic Filaments"
    Mocz, P., Fialkov, A., Vogelsberger, M., Becerra, F., et al., 2019, PhRvL.
    Links to the article: PhRvL, ADS, and arXiv
  3. "Assembly of Supermassive Black Hole Seeds"
    Becerra, F., Marinacci, F., Bromm, V., and Hernquist, L., 2018, MNRAS, 480, 5029.
    Links to the article: MNRAS, ADS, and arXiv
  4. "Schrodinger-Poisson-Vlasov-Poisson correspondence"
    Mocz, P., Lancaster, L., Fialkov, A., Becerra, F., et al., 2018, PhRvD.
    Links to the article: PhRvD, ADS, and arXiv
  5. "Opacity Limit for Supermassive Protostars"
    Becerra, F., Marinacci, F., Inayoshi, K., Bromm, V., and Hernquist, L., 2018, ApJ, 857, 138.
    Links to the article: ApJ, ADS, and arXiv
  6. "Radiative effects during the assembly of direct collapse black holes"
    Smith, A., Becerra, F., Bromm, V., Hernquist, L., 2017, MNRAS, 472, 205.
    Links to the article: MNRAS, ADS, and arXiv.
  7. "Unveiling the Role of Galactic Rotation on Star Formation"
    Utreras, J., Becerra, F., Escala, A., 2016, ApJ, 833, 13.
    Links to the article: ApJ, ADS, and arXiv.
  8. "Formation of Massive Protostars in Atomic Cooling Haloes"
    Becerra, F., Greif, T. H., Springel, V., and Hernquist, L., 2015, MNRAS, 446, 2380.
    Links to the article: MNRAS, ADS, and arXiv.
  9. "The Interstellar Medium and Star Formation in Local Galaxies:
    Variations of the Star Formation Law in Simulations"
    Becerra, F. and Escala, A., 2014, ApJ, 786, 56.
    Links to the article: ApJ, ADS, and arXiv.
  10. "Gravitational Fragmentation in Galaxy Mergers: A Stability Criterion"
    Escala, A., Becerra, F., del Valle, L., and Castillo, E., 2013, ApJ, 763, 39.
    Links to the article: ApJ, ADS, and arXiv.

Galleries

Assembly of supermassive black hole seeds (Becerra et al. 2018b)

Formation and fragmentation of a protostellar system (Becerra et al. 2015)

Interstellar medium and star formation in isolated disk galaxies (Becerra et al. 2014)

Gas fragmentation in galaxy mergers (Escala et al. 2013)

Projects

Collection of side projects related to astronomy.

Astrollytelling

Ex2: Exoplanets Explorer

Pavoreal: Parallel Volume Rendering Algorithm

L1551 extravaganza

Term Paper: AGN Feedback

Term Paper: The MBH-sigma relation

About Fernando

In 2018, I obtained my PhD from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. My thesis focused on understanding how the first supermassive black hole seeds formed in the early Universe. My work was supervised by Lars Hernquist and Volker Bromm.

Before that, I got a Masters and a Bachelor degree from the Department of Astronomy at Universidad de Chile, where I studied the interstellar medium and star formation in simulations of local isolated galaxies under the supervision of Andres Escala.

After my graduate studies, I spent one year working at Fathom Information Design in a position that mixed software development and the creation of interactive visualizations. Now I spent my days traveling through the Americas and taking pictures.