Christopher D Rimes
Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon
Observatoire de Lyon
9 Avenue Charles André
69561 St-Genis-Laval Cedex
France

Phone: (+33) 4 78 86 83 70

Employment

Postdoctoral Researcher, ENS Lyon/CNRS 2006-2008
CRAL, Observatoire de Lyon, 9 Avenue Charles André, 69561 St-Genis-Laval Cedex, France

As part of Projet Horizon – a nationwide project aimed at using state-of-the-art numerical simulations to study topics in cosmology – I am responsible for analysing the results of the largest cosmological hydrodynamic simulation ever performed.

Research Associate, University of Colorado at Boulder 2003-2006
JILA, University of Colorado, 440 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0440, USA

As a research associate I conducted independent research in collaboration with Professors Andrew Hamilton and Nick Gnedin. I used a suite of N-body simulations to study the non-linear evolution of cosmological density fields and its implications for future measurements of cosmological parameters. I was also involved in outreach work with the Physics Education Research Group.

Education

PhD (Astronomy) - University of Edinburgh 1999-2003
University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK
MPhys (1st class) Physics with Astrophysics – University of Manchester 1995-1999
University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
A-levels – Thomas Rotherham College 1993-1995
Thomas Rotherham College, Moorgate Road, Rotherham, South Yorkshire S60 2BE, UK

Physics (A), Mathematics (A), Further Mathematics (A), Chemistry (B), General Studies (A)

Publications

Refereed journals

Information content of the non-linear power spectrum: the effect of beat-coupling to large scales
C. D. Rimes & A. J. S. Hamilton, 2006, MNRAS, 371, 1205 (astro-ph/0511418)

On measuring the covariance matrix of the non-linear power spectrum from simulations
A. J. S. Hamilton, C. D. Rimes & R. Scoccimarro, 2006, MNRAS, 371, 1188 (astro-ph/0511416)

The cosmological information content of the halo-model dark-matter power spectrum
M. C. Neyrinck, I. Szapudi & C. D. Rimes, 2006, MNRAS, 370, L66 (astro-ph/0604282)

Information content of the non-linear matter power spectrum
C. D. Rimes & A. J. S. Hamilton, 2005, MNRAS, 360, L82 (astro-ph/0502081)

Conference proceedings

Properties of disk galaxies in phenomenological models of galaxy formation
C. D. Rimes & E. van Kampen, 2002, in "Galaxy Evolution: Theory and Observations", RevMexAA SC, 17, 138 (astro-ph/0206209)

Conference presentations

Cosmological parameters from the non-linear power spectrum?
Poster presentation at the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Washington DC, January 2006

Non-linear evolution of the pre-whitened cosmological power spectrum
Poster presentation at the 204th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Denver, CO, June 2004

Star formation thresholds, the bivariate brightness distribution and galaxy formation
Contributed talk at the Postgraduate meeting on Galaxies and Cosmology, Preston, U.K., November 2002

Selection effects in galaxy surveys and implications for models of galaxy formation
Contributed talk at the 2nd Durham/Edinburgh Extragalactic Workshop, Edinburgh, U.K., June 2002

Properties of disk galaxies in phenomenological models of galaxy formation
Poster presentation at Galaxy Evolution: Theory and Observations, Cozumel, Mexico, April 2002

Teaching experience

Undergraduate tutoring: Small group tutorials/example classes in introductory astronomy; quantum mechanics; dynamics & relativity; physics of stars and nebulae; galaxies, quasars & the universe and astrophysical cosmology.

Laboratory: Demonstrating in 1st year physics labs.

Lecturing: Guest lecture for a graduate level cosmology course.

Other skills

Programming languages: Extensive experience of scientific programming in C, Fortran and IDL (Interactive Data Language) including parallel applications (MPI/OpenMP) and electronic typesetting (TEX/LATEX). Working knowledge of HTML/XHTML, CSS, Perl and Java.

Numerical simulations: Running and analysing high-resolution N-body simulations using particle-mesh, adaptive mesh refinement (ART/RAMSES) and tree (GADGET) codes, including running simulations in massively parallel environments; combined N-body/phenomenological models of galaxy formation.

Computer applications: Applications on UNIX/Linux, Windows and Macintosh platforms.

Public outreach: Attended workshops on Selling Physics (April, 2001) and Communicating Science to Non-Specialists (June, 2001). Practical experience including:

  • Q&A sessions with school groups at the ROE visitor centre
  • Public presentations using an inflatable planetarium (March, 2000)
  • Outreach with middle and high school students in Colorado through the university’s physics education group.

Research interests

I am interested in the formation and evolution of galaxies in a cosmological context, in particular the effects of the environment on galaxy evolution and the role of feedback - from both star formation and AGN activity - in galaxy formation. My approach to this problem involves using gravitational N-body simulations, combined with phenomenological (semi-analytical) models for the formation of galaxies in dark matter haloes, to investigate the physical processes underlying the observed characteristics of the galaxy population. I am also interested in the formation and evolution of large-scale structure in the Universe.

References

Names and contact details of referees are available on request.