I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Astronomy department and the Theoretical Astrophysics Center at UC, Berkeley. I completed my graduate studies in the Plasma Physics program, department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University . Before that I was an undergraduate student at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay .

Funaesdalen

Contact information:

Prateek Sharma
Postdoctoral Researcher
427 Campbell Hall
University of California, Berkeley
CA 94720
Phone: (510) 229-0337
Fax: (510) 642-3411
Email: psharma ! astro % berkeley % edu (replace ! by at and % by dot)

my blog


Research interests:

Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics: instabilities, buoyancy, convection , turbulence
Plasma Astrophysics: plasma kinetic processes; MHD; cosmic-rays
Numerical Methods: hydro, MHD methods; anisotropic transport in dilute plasmas; Vlasov, PIC methods
High Energy Astrophysics: accretion disk transport, outflows & energetics; shocks; particle acceleration; X-ray galaxy clusters
My papers on arxiv
Some of my Talks
My CV

Summary of selected research projects:

Physics of hot accretion flows
Physically consistent numerical implementation of anisotropic thermal conduction
Spherical accretion with anisotropic thermal conduction
Turbulence and mixing in the intracluster medium
Paper on thermal instability in the intracluster medium
Paper on numerical implementation and properties of the cosmic ray streaming equation

Useful links:

A picture is worth a thousand words.
Astro-ph
My PhD thesis on the physics of hot, collisionless accretion flows.
Plasma formulary

Collaborators and Mentors:

Ben Chandran ; Phillip Colella ; Katie Dodds-Eden ; Greg Hammett ; Mike McCourt ; Ian Parrish ; Eliot Quataert ; Jim Stone

Personal:

The year 2009 will be celebrated as the International Year of Astronomy commemorating the first recorded astronomical observations of Galileo 400 years ago. Check out the Public talk series at UC Berkeley on this occasion.

Practical DIY Science for everyone
NOVA online programs
Sal Khan's Academy
Practical Python for Astronomers
Astronomical Productivity
Updated May 15th 2011