Piero Madau

About

Piero Madau is a Professor in the Astronomy & Astrophysics Department within the Physical & Biological Sciences Division. His research focuses on theoretical astrophysics and cosmology, with specific interests including the physics of the intergalactic medium, the first light and the dawn of galaxies, high-energy radiation backgrounds, the formation and evolution of massive black holes, and the cosmic history of star formation. He has also been involved in the 'Via Lactea Project,' which involves a suite of extremely high-resolution simulations of the assembly of the dark matter halo of the Milky Way. Madau holds a BS from the University of Florence obtained in 1983 and a PhD from the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste completed in 1987.

Research topics

• Physics
• Astrophysics
• Astronomy
• Quantum mechanics
• Condensed matter physics

Selected publications

• Evolutionary roads leading to low effective spins, high black hole masses, and O1/O2 rates for LIGO/Virgo binary black holes

  Astronomy and Astrophysics · 2020 · 285 citations

  All ten LIGO/Virgo binary black hole (BH-BH) coalescences reported following the O1/O2 runs have near-zero effective spins. There are only three potential explanations for this. If the BH spin magnitudes are large, then: (i) either both BH spin vectors must be nearly in the orbital plane or (ii) the spin angular momenta of the BHs must be oppositely directed and similar in magnitude. Then there is also the possibility that (iii) the BH spin magnitudes are small. We consider the third hypothesis…

  DOI

• New constraints on warm dark matter from the Lyman-<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math> forest power spectrum

  Physical review. D/Physical review. D. · 2023-07-05 · 85 citations

  articleOpen access

  The forest of Lyman-$\ensuremath{\alpha}$ absorption lines detected in the spectra of distant quasars encodes information on the nature and properties of dark matter and the thermodynamics of diffuse baryonic material. Its main observable---the 1D flux power spectrum (FPS)---should exhibit a suppression on small scales and an enhancement on large scales in warm dark matter (WDM) cosmologies compared to standard $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Lambda}}\mathrm{CDM}$. Here, we present an unprecedented suite…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Modeling cosmic reionization

  Living Reviews in Computational Astrophysics · 2022 · 64 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Abstract The transformation of cold neutral intergalactic hydrogen into a highly ionized warm plasma marks the end of the cosmic dark ages and the beginning of the age of galaxies. The details of this process reflect the nature of the early sources of radiation and heat, the statistical characteristics of the large-scale structure of the Universe, the thermodynamics and chemistry of cosmic baryons, and the histories of star formation and black hole accretion. A number of massive data sets from n…

  DOI

• Formation of the First Stars and Black Holes

  Space Science Reviews · 2020 · 54 citations

  DOI

• Cosmic Reionization in the JWST Era: Back to AGNs?

  The Astrophysical Journal · 2024-08-01 · 52 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Deep surveys with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an emergent population of moderate-luminosity, broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at 4 ≲ z ≲ 13 powered by accretion onto early massive black holes. The high number densities reported, together with the large Lyman-continuum (LyC) production efficiency and leakiness into the intergalactic medium that are typical of UV-selected AGNs, lead us to reassess a scenario where AGNs are the sole drivers of the cosmic hyd…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: CDI- Type II: Towards Analyzing Complex Petascale Datasets: The Milky Way Laboratory

  NSF · $816k · 2011–2016

• The Imprint of Galaxy Formation on the Intergalactic Environment

  NSF · $552k · 2009–2013

• MRI: Acquisition of a High-Performance Parallel Computing Cluster for Astrophysics Research at the University of California, Santa Cruz

  NSF · $910k · 2012–2014

Frequent coauthors

• Lucio Mayer

  University of Zurich

  122 shared

• Francesco Haardt

  University of Insubria

  77 shared

• M. Kuhlen

  University of California, Berkeley

  69 shared

• James Wadsley

  McMaster University

  62 shared

• Thomas Quinn

  University of Washington

  54 shared

• Alessandro Lupi

  Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Milano Bicocca

  51 shared

• Marta Volonteri

  Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris

  42 shared

• Stelios Kazantzidis

  National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

  39 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Astronomy

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1996

• M.S., Astronomy

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1993

• B.S., Physics

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  1991

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