Victor Debattista - Academic Staff

Victor's research covers galaxy dynamics and formation using simulations and observations. He lectures on galaxies (as part of on-campus and online learning provision). He is part of the MOONS collaboration, the Euclid collaboration, and serves on the UK Board of LSST. Victor supervises postgraduate projects on galaxies and the Milky Way.

Victor leads our Galaxy Dynamics research group. His peer-reviewed publications (over 150) have covered nuclear star clusters, supermassive black holes, bars, bulges, spirals, warps and dark matter halos. He runs simulations at UCLan's HPC facility as well as on the national DiRAC facility. Former members of the Galaxy Dynamics group are now in posts in China, Europe and the USA. Besides UCLan, he has supervised PhD students at the University of Basel, University of Washington, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, the University of Padova and the University of Malta.

Between 2014 and 2019, Victor served as co-I of the EU COST Action BigSkyEarth. Between 2015 and 2020 Victor ran a successful outreach programme with the Lancashire Council of Mosques to educate the public on the Moon. Victor has co-chaired 6 international conferences and workshops.

Victor has organised the Jeremiah Horrocks Public lecture series at UCLan since 2012. Hundreds of members of the general public have attended these talks, deepening the University's ties with the Lancashire community.

The galaxy dynamics research group, which Victor leads, uses simulations of galaxy formation to leverage the huge investment being made into studying the Milky Way, in order to understand the evolution, and observed properties, of galaxies in general. As a typical galaxy, the Milky Way is an important benchmark for studying galaxy formation. Uncovering its mass assembly is therefore of great importance to understanding galaxy formation. Several surveys now underway are examining it on a star-by-star basis. The European Space Agency's keystone mission Gaia is mapping the Milky Way in 3-D with 1 billion stars, while ground-based surveys such as Gaia-ESO, APOGEE and GALAH are obtaining chemical compositions and ages for hundreds of thousands of stars. These complex datasets need state-of-the-art simulations with gas, star formation, supernovae and chemistry (which ensure that models evolve realistically) to interpret properly. Victor have been producing such models to understand how the bar and bulge formed, how the thick disc formed and how stars in the disc are affected by spirals and by warps.

Key publications:

V. P. Debattista, M. Ness, O. A. Gonzalez, K. Freeman, M. Zoccali, & D. Minniti, 2017, “Separation of Stellar Populations by an Evolving Bar: Implications for the Bulge of the Milky Way”, M.N.R.A.S., 469, 1587.
J. A. S. Amarante, L. Beraldo e Silva, V. P. Debattista, & M. C. Smith 2020, “The Splash without a merger”, Ap.J., 891, L30.
L. Beraldo e Silva, V. P. Debattista, D. Nidever, J. A. S. Amarante, & B. Garver 2021, “Co-formation of the thin and thick discs revealed by APOGEE-DR16 and Gaia-DR2”, M.N.R.A.S., 502, 260.
T. Khachaturyants, L. Beraldo e Silva, & V. P. Debattista 2021, “How stars formed in the warp settle into (and contaminate) the thick disc”, M.N.R.A.S., 508, 2350.

Use the links below to view their profiles:

Member of the Science Organizing Committee for the ESO workshop “Inward Bound: Bulges from High Redshifts to the Milky Way” Garching, Germany, (2020)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for the conference “Galactic Rings: Signposts of Secular Evolution in Disk Galaxies” Tuscaloosa, AL, USA, (2018)
Chair of the Science Organizing Committee for the conference “The Role of Gas in Galaxy Dy- namics” Valletta, Malta, (2017)
Chair of the Science Organizing Committee for the workshop “Thin, Thick and Dark Disks” Ascona, Switzerland, (2017)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for National Astronomy Meeting session “Witnessing Disc Galaxy Evolution Through the Eyes of Their Stellar Structures,” Llandudno, UK, (2015)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for the conference “The Local Group Astrostatistics Conference: Bridging Observations and Simulations” Michigan, USA, (2015)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for National Astronomy Meeting session “Interplay of Black Holes and Host Galaxies,” Portsmouth, UK, (2014)
Chair of the Science Organizing Committee for the workshop “Nuclear Clusters in Galaxies, and the Role of the Environment” Leiden, the Netherlands, (2014)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for the conference “The 7th Korean Astrophysics Workshop on Dynamics of Disk Galaxies,” Seoul, Korea, (2013)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for National Astronomy Meeting session “The Impact of Secular Evolution on Galaxy Evolution and Black Hole Growth,” St. Andrews, UK, (2013)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for the conference “The Role of Bars in Galaxy Evolution,” Granada, Spain, (2013)
Chair of the Science Organizing Committee for the workshop “Stars Without Borders: Radial Migration in Spiral Galaxies,” Medana, Slovenia, (2012)
Member of the Science Organizing Committee for the GREAT ESF workshop “Galaxy Modelling with a Gaia Mock Catalogue,” Barcelona, Spain, (2012)
Chair of the Science Organizing Committee and proceedings editor for the conference “Hunting for the Dark: The Hidden Side of Galaxy Formation,” Malta, (2009). This conference was attended by ∼ 150 persons
Chair of the Science Organizing Committee and proceedings editor for the workshop “Tumbling, Twisting, and Winding Galaxies: Pattern Speeds Across the Hubble Sequence,” Padova, (2008)

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Professor Victor Debattista

Professor Victor Debattista

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