Miguel Á. Pérez Torres

Research Scientist
Departamento de Radioastronomía y Astronomía Galáctica

I am a research scientist at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC, Granada, Spain) of the CSIC (the Spanish National Research Council).

My current main research interests deal with the the study of the central regions of Luminous and Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies. Those galaxies display star-formation rates which are 10 to 100 times larger than seen in "normal" galaxies, e.g., the Milky Way, and they play a crucial role in the star-formation history of the Universe.

To study them, my team and I use very high-angular resolution radio observations, utilizing a technique called radio interferometry, which allows me to take photos of the nuclear and circumnuclear regions of those galaxies with enormous spatial detail. In this way, we are able to pick-up new supernovae (this is a direct tracer of recent star-formation, since supernovae only live a few million years), as well as distinguishing the remnants of supernovae that exploded long ago, or even the Black Hole sitting at the center of some of those galaxies.

office: IAA-CSIC phone: +34-958-230-644 (office); fax: +34-958-814-530

CV [pdf]
Research
List of publications
21 February 2006, in front of Rijsmuseum, Amsterdam