In a huge effort to pin down one of the most important and controversial measurements in modern astrophysics, that of the rate by which stars form in the universe, members of a large international consortia have shown that this is now possible due to the theoretical models of astrophysicist Dr Cristina Popescu.
In the last decade many methods have been employed by major research teams from all over the world to derive this crucial quantity. The recent study shows that, when critically comparing and contrasting results obtained from all these methods, it was the one developed at UCLan that provides the correct answer.
In the paper that describes the results, the method of Popescu et al. was selected as being the one that provided”gold standard” measurements of star-formation rates.
The relative success of UCLan’s model, as compared with other methods developed across the world, is due to the fact that it is based on a self-consistent computation of the transport of radiation coming from the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
Dr Popescu has pioneered and developed this field of research and is currently the Vice-President of a newly formed Commission of the International Astronomical Union (her field of research).
The results of this ‘meta-analysis’ are to be published in the Royal Astronomical Society’s Monthly Notices, and can be already accessed in the Advance Access publication from June 2016. Dr Popescu is one of the authors of this study.
You can read the research paper here.
(written by UClan).