Yale physicist Daisuke Nagai has won the 2011 Young Scientist’s Prize in Astrophysics from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.
for ground-breaking research that has significantly improved our understanding of the structure and evolution of galaxy clusters and their application for cosmology, through the use of novel computer simulations and the development of techniques that control systematic uncertainties due to non-linear astrophysical processes.
In December Nagai will receive a prize and deliver a talk, titled “A New Era of Cosmology and Astrophysics with Galaxy Clusters,” at the 26th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics in Sao Paulo.
Nagai’s research focuses on computational modeling of galaxy clusters — the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity. The formation of these objects is driven by dark matter and dark energy.