Paolo Padoan

Universitat de Barcelona

Experimental Sciences & Mathematics

Academic Degrees: PhD in Astrophysics, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, 1997 Degree in Astronomy, University of Padova, 1992 Academic Positions: ICREA Research Professor, University of Barcelona, March 2010 - present Associate Professor, UC San Diego, June 2007 - February 2010 Assistant Professor, UC San Diego, June 2003 - June 2007 Postdoctoral Fellow, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, 2001 - 2003 Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University, 1999 - 2001 Postdoctoral Fellow, INOAE, Puebla, 1998 - 1999


Research interests

A major goal of my research is to understand the origin of stars. Star formation is a central problem in the study of galaxy evolution and cosmology. Stars are a dominant energy source to the interstellar medium of galaxies and control their chemical enrichment; the first massive stars in the universe contributed to its re-ionization. Because star-forming gas in galaxies is highly turbulent, the study of star formation involves the investigation of turbulence as well. A general theory of turbulence does not exist, but computer simulations provide valuable information on universal properties of turbulent flows. I conduct numerical experiments of super-sonic, self-gravitating magneto-hydrodynamic turbulence with physical parameters appropriate for describing star-forming gas in galaxies. Using adaptive mesh refinement methods, numerical simulations may span a huge range of scales, from the size of a galactic disk to that of an individual circumstellar disk.

Selected publications

– Kong S et al. 2018, ‘The CARMA-NRO Orion Survey’, Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 236, 2, 25.

– Haugbolle T, Padoan P & Nordlund A 2018, ‘The Stellar IMF from Isothermal MHD Turbulence’, Astrophysical Journal, 854, 1, 35.

– Pan L, Padoan P & Nordlund A 2018, ‘Detailed Balance and Exact Results for Density Fluctuations in Supersonic Turbulence’, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 866, 2, L17.

Padoan P 2018, ‘The magnetic field of molecular clouds‘, Contributions of the Astronomical Observatory Skalnaté Pleso, vol. 48, no. 1, p. 32-39


Selected research activities

Supercomputing grants:
RES (RES - Red Española de Supercomputación), 2018-2019, The Origin of the Stellar Initial Mass Function, 4 Million Core Hours (PI: Paolo Padoan) 

Reviewer for:
The Astrophgysical Journal, Nature, Astronomy and Astrophysics

Student supervision:
One PhD student (Zujia Lu)

Coneferences and Workshops:
Four invited talks