Dr. Noam Libeskind

My research

I am a faculty member and head of the Cosmography and Large-scale Structure group in the Cosmology and High-energy Astrophysics section, here at the AIP. The work of my group focuses on galaxy formation, the Milky Way, the Local Group, cosmography and constrained simulations. in short: we make maps of the Universe and use the maps to simulate the local environment around us.

My group at the AIP consists of observers and theorists. We share one thing in common: we all want to know what the Local Group really looks like, how it formed and how it can be used to probe fundamental physics.

From December 2018 until December 2021 I was a professor at the Institute of two Infinities,  a laboratory of Université de Lyon-1, Université Claude Bernard.  At the I2PI I headed the IDEXLyon group entitled "The near field as a cosmological laboratory" where I worked on cosmography and the formation of the local cosmic web.

I am the PI of two trans-national research project. Together with Prof Kang Xi of the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing,  China, I co-lead a project entitled " The Cosmic Web and its impact on galaxy formation and alignment" which looks at how  galaxies or clusters, are oriented with respect to their environments. Together with Dr Wojtek Hellwing of the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, I co-lead a project entitled "“Local UniverSe Tests of gRavity and dark Energy (LUSTRE)".  We examine how the Local Group can be used as tests for various models of gravity, including LCDM.

I have written a number of popular articles for the layperson, two of which appeared in Scientific American and Sky & Telescope. I wrote the most recent one (2019) with my colleague Prof Yehuda Hoffman (Jerusalem) on the quasi-linear Universe. I also wrote one with Prof  Brent Tully (Hawaii) on Cosmography in 2016 (which also made it into Scientific Americans "Top 20 Stories of 2016" and "Wonders of the Cosmos" 2017) and one on Dark matter and the dwarf galaxies of the Milky Way in 2014. Please email me if you would like a PDF of these articles.

My research includes:

- Galaxy formation and hydrodynamical simulations

- Satellite and dwarf galaxies of the Milky Way and Andromeda

- Reconstructions of the matter distribution

- The cosmic web and characterisation of the Megaparsec Universe

- The Local Group

- Alignments of galaxies with respect to their environment

- Cosmographic maps

Colleagues and Conferences

My main collaborators are at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), The Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (China), the Universidad Autonoma De Madrid (Spain), The Center for Theoretical Physics in Warsaw (Poland), the Technion in Haifa (Israel), Durham University (UK), University of Hawaii (USA), and Liverpool John Moores University (UK). That said, I would love to share my data with any one who wants to use it, since it's imperative that science be as open as possible.

I am one of the PIs of the Constrained Local UniversE Simulation Project (CLUES) which aims at constructing initial conditions that are constrained to reproduce the main features of the local universe.

I am a PI of the High-resolution Environmental Simulations of The Immediate Area (HESTIA) project.

I am also involved in the MultiDark simulations, a spanish led consortium that produces some of the largest cosmological simulations out there. these simulations, along with data products such as halo catalogues, Mergertrees and semi-analytical galaxy catalogues, are made public for use by the community.

I organized a Lorenz Center meeting on the local universe in February of 2020. More information here

I was part of the SOC for the 15th AIP Thinkshop on "The role of feedback in galaxy formation: from small-scale winds to large-scale outflow"

Periodically, I organize CLUES meetings. The last one (that was in person in 2019) was in Lyon. The next one (2022) will be in Madrid.

I co-organized a meeting in Obergurgl, Austria regarding issues facing Near Field Cosmology.

Ages ago I organized a meeting on the Cosmic Web at the Lorentz Center (in Leiden), for which info can be found here. A paper comparing cosmic web identifiers came out of that meeting.

I also organized a meeting on dwarfs and the Local Universe, (in Potsdam) for which info can be found here (see below). The meeting was rewarded with a municipal award from the city of Potsdam for being the best meeting within the past two years in Potsdam: see the press release here.

Private stuff

On a private note I enjoy bike riding, cooking, architecture and Philip Roth novels.

Below you can find a partial list of my recent publications. For a more comprehensive list, you can go to my CV