Research
Why are there significantly lower fractions of star-forming galaxies in dense regions of the cosmos? What is the dominant physical mechanism behind this phenomenon, and how does it depend on host halo mass, redshift, and satellite stellar mass? What role do protoclusters play in the evolution of galaxy properties? These are some of the questions that my research aims to answer.
My research
I am primarily an observational astrophysicist, however my work bridges the gap between observations and simulations to better understand the physical mechanisms that suppress (or quench) star formation in galaxy groups and clusters across cosmic time. My recent work has focused on combining remarkable observations of massive galaxy clusters observed when the Universe was approximately half its current age with analagous populations from cosmological simulations to understand the efficiency of environmental quenching at this epoch.
For more information view my CV.
First Author Peer-Reviewed Publications
- A Supervised Learning Approach for Exploring Low-Mass Satellite Quenching Beyond the Local Group (2021) D.C. Baxter et al.
- The GOGREEN survey: constraining the satellite quenching time-scale in massive clusters at z ≳ 1 (2022) D.C. Baxter et al.
- When the Well Runs Dry: Modeling Environmental Quenching in Massive Clusters at z≳1 (2023) D.C. Baxter et al.