rschisholm@wisc.edu
Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
I am a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison studying astrophysics under Prof. Elena D'Onghia.
My research interests broadly span dwarf galaxy structure and dynamics, primarily through the lens of
theoretical tools such as cosmological simulations and analytic modeling.
I am a member of the CLUES
collaboration, and the SDSS collaboration.
The following is a list of several projects I'm working on, or have recently completed.
Where might the Large Magellanic Cloud's central supermassive blackhole lie?
Although we typically think of central supermassive blackholes (SMBHs) as lying strictly at the bottom of a
galaxy's gravitational potential well, this need not necessarily be the case. Especially regarding dwarf
galaxies embedded in turbulent environments, such as the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), perturbations and
tidal forces can "kick" the SMBH outside the central region. We undertake a novel approach to understand
the dynamics and "sloshing" of the LMC's central massive blackhole, using analytic potental modeling and
the galpy orbit integration code, and
treating the SMBH distribution probabilistically, to predict where the
LMC's putative SMBH would inhabit. Given our estimates for the SMBH's on-sky location, current IFU
spectroscopic surveys such as the SDSS-V
Large Volume Mapper
could potentially make a detection.
[paper in development]
Magellanic Cloud-analogs in a cosmological context.
Using the HESTIA cosmological
simulations (which provide an unparalleled laboratory to study small-scale galactic phenomena at a
sufficient resolution, while still enabling proper embedding in the correct cosmographic landscape), I
investigate "Magellanic-system analogs", that is systems of dwarfs resembling the Large and Small Magellanic
Clouds (LMC, SMC) in mass and other properties, that form naturally with a virialized halo and embedded in
the correct cosmographic environment. More specifically, insight into a proposed primordial Magellanic
corona and the survivability of HI structures (such as the Magellanic Stream and the Leading Arm) within
said warm-hot corona can help constrain properties and potential histories of the Magellanic Clouds. I was
able to place an upper bound on the lifetime of purely tidally stripped Leading Arm of ~600 Myr, and show
that a stellar component to the Magellanic Stream could be spatially non-coexistent with the dominant HI
strand. This work was published in ApJ;
DOI.
non-science
Outside of science, I spend most of my time in cafés, doing some combination of the following:
enjoying music --listening to and playing--, biking to the countryside, cooking new dishes, discovering new
places while travelling, and reading-- some of my favorite authors are Clarke, Le Guin, Camus,
and Tolstoy.
