Rychard Bouwens

Rychard J. Bouwens is an associate professor at Leiden University.[1][2] He is also a former member of the Advanced Camera for Surveys Guaranteed Time Observation team and postdoctoral research astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He obtained his bachelor's degree in physics, chemistry, and mathematics from Hope College. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in physics at the University of California, Berkeley under the supervision of Joseph Silk and also worked with Tom Broadhurst.[3][4]

He works on the interpretation of high redshift starbursts.[5][6] He helped create the Bouwens' Universe Construction Set (BUCS), which can simulate arbitrary galaxy fields and calculate any galaxy observables.[7]

Throughout his career, he has broken the record for discovering the most distant galaxy in the universe, including three sources in 2015–2016 with record-breaking spectroscopic redshift measurements at z=7.73 (see EGS-zs8-1),[8][9] z=8.68 (see EGSY8p7),[10] and z=11.1 (see GN-z11).[11][12][13] In a 2011 Nature paper,[14] his team discovered galaxy UDFj-39546284 with a photometric redshift of ~10[15][16] and was immediately heralded as the most distant source known in the universe.[17][18][19] It was later estimated to have a redshift of 11.9.[20]

In 2013,[21][22][23] he was awarded the Pastoor Schmeitsprijs voor de Sterrenkunde,[24] a prize in the Netherlands given to the researcher (under the age of 40) judged to have made the most significant contribution to astronomy.

In 2019, Rychard was the successful principal investigator of the REBELS ALMA Large Program,[25] a 70-hour program to identify a substantial sample of luminous interstellar medium reservoirs in the first 800 million years of the universe at z>~6.5.[26][27] Thanks to the results from the program, [CII] and dust were prominently detected in >~18 sources at z>~6.5.[28][29]

Over the course of his career, Bouwens has five published papers in Nature, two as first author,[14][30] one as second author,[31] and two for Nature News & Views.[32][33]

  1. ^ "Leiden Observatory faculty directory". Leiden University. Archived from the original on 2011-03-10.
  2. ^ "Leiden Observatory Personal Page".
  3. ^ "Professional History". LinkedIn.com.
  4. ^ "Professional History" (PDF).
  5. ^ "Description of Rychard Bouwens' Research". Word Press. August 2016.
  6. ^ "About firstgalaxies.org".
  7. ^ Bouwens, Rychard J.; Illingworth, Garth D.; Magee, Daniel (2006). "BUCS: An Engine For Generating Realistic Imaging Data for Deep Galaxy Fields". Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems Xv. 351: 145. arXiv:astro-ph/0605729. Bibcode:2006ASPC..351..145B.
  8. ^ P.A. Oesch; P.D. van Dokkum; G.D. Illingworth; R.J. Bouwens; I. Momcheva; B. Holden; G. W. Roberts-Borsani; R. Smit; M. Franx; I. Labbé; V. González; D. Magee (2015). "A Spectroscopic Redshift Measurement for a Luminous Lyman Break Galaxy at z = 7.730 Using Keck/MOSFIRE". Astrophysical Journal. 804 (2): L30. arXiv:1502.05399. Bibcode:2015ApJ...804L..30O. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/804/2/L30. S2CID 55115344.
  9. ^ "Astronomers set a new galaxy distance record". astronomynow.com.
  10. ^ A. Zitrin; I. Labbe; Belli, S.; R.J. Bouwens; R.S. Ellis; G. Roberts-Borsani; D.P. Stark; P.A. Oesch; R. Smit (2015). "Lymanα Emission from a Luminous z = 8.68 Galaxy: Implications for Galaxies as Tracers of Cosmic Reionization". Astrophysical Journal. 810 (1): L12. arXiv:1507.02679. Bibcode:2015ApJ...810L..12Z. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/810/1/L12. S2CID 11524667.
  11. ^ P. Oesch; G. Brammer; P.G. van Dokkum; G.D. Illingworth; R.J. Bouwens; I. Labbé; M. Franx; I. Momcheva; M.L.N. Ashby; G.G. Fazio; V. Gonzalez; B. Holden; D. Magee; R.E. Skelton; R. Smit; L.R. Spitler; M. Trenti; S.P. Willner (2016). "A Remarkably Luminous Galaxy at z=11.1 Measured with Hubble Space Telescope Grism Spectroscopy". Astrophysical Journal. 819 (2): 129. arXiv:1603.00461. Bibcode:2016ApJ...819..129O. doi:10.3847/0004-637X/819/2/129. S2CID 119262750.
  12. ^ "Hubble Team Breaks Cosmic Distance Record". astronomynow.com.
  13. ^ "Hubble Breaks Cosmic Distance Record". Space Telescope.
  14. ^ a b R.J. Bouwens; G.D. Illingworth; I. Labbe; P.A. Oesch; M. Trenti; C.M. Carollo; P.G. van Dokkum; M. Franx; M. Stiavelli; V. González; D. Magee; L. Bradley (2011). "A candidate redshift z ~ 10 galaxy and rapid changes in that population at an age of 500 Myr". Nature. 469 (7331): 504–507. arXiv:0912.4263. Bibcode:2011Natur.469..504B. doi:10.1038/nature09717. PMID 21270889. S2CID 4425674.
  15. ^ "Astronomers Discover Oldest Galaxy Yet Seen". www.space.com. 26 January 2011.
  16. ^ "NASA's Hubble Finds Most Distant Galaxy Candidate Ever Seen in Universe". www.nasa.gov.
  17. ^ Mann, Adam (2011). "Oldest Galaxy is Lone Ranger". Nature. Nature News. doi:10.1038/news.2011.47.
  18. ^ "Earliest Galaxy". Scientific American.
  19. ^ Grossman, Lisa. "Hubble Finds Galaxy Beyond Key Benchmark". Wired.
  20. ^ "Caltech-led astronomers discover galaxies near cosmic dawn". www.caltech.edu. 12 December 2012.
  21. ^ "Prijs voor Rychard Bouwens van Sterrewacht Universiteit Leiden". omroepwest.nl. 8 May 2013.
  22. ^ "Pastoor Schmeitsprijs voor de Sterrenkunde toegekend aan Dr. Rychard Bouwens". www.universiteitleiden.nl. 14 May 2013.
  23. ^ "Science Prize for Dutch Astronomer". 8 May 2013.
  24. ^ "Pastoor Schmeitsprijs". 26 October 2011.
  25. ^ "ALMA-REBELS". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2022-12-25.
  26. ^ "Large Programs". ALMA Science Portal at ESO. Retrieved 2022-12-25.
  27. ^ "Rychard Bouwens granted precious research time on ALMA telescope". Leiden University. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 2022-12-25.
  28. ^ Bouwens, R. J.; Smit, R.; Schouws, S.; Stefanon, M.; Bowler, R.; Endsley, R.; Gonzalez, V.; Inami, H.; Stark, D.; Oesch, P.; Hodge, J.; Aravena, M.; da Cunha, E.; Dayal, P.; Looze, I. de (2022-06-01). "Reionization Era Bright Emission Line Survey: Selection and Characterization of Luminous Interstellar Medium Reservoirs in the z > 6.5 Universe". The Astrophysical Journal. 931 (2): 160. arXiv:2106.13719. Bibcode:2022ApJ...931..160B. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac5a4a. ISSN 0004-637X. S2CID 235652412.
  29. ^ Inami, Hanae; Algera, Hiddo S. B.; Schouws, Sander; Sommovigo, Laura; Bouwens, Rychard; Smit, Renske; Stefanon, Mauro; Bowler, Rebecca A. A.; Endsley, Ryan; Ferrara, Andrea; Oesch, Pascal; Stark, Daniel; Aravena, Manuel; Barrufet, Laia; da Cunha, Elisabete (2022-09-01). "The ALMA REBELS Survey: dust continuum detections at z > 6.5". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 515 (3): 3126–3143. arXiv:2203.15136. Bibcode:2022MNRAS.515.3126I. doi:10.1093/mnras/stac1779. ISSN 0035-8711.
  30. ^ Bouwens, Rychard J.; Illingworth, Garth D. (2006). "Rapid evolution of the most luminous galaxies during the first 900 million years". Nature. 443 (7108): 189–192. arXiv:astro-ph/0607087. Bibcode:2006Natur.443..189B. doi:10.1038/nature05156. PMID 16971943. S2CID 4416389.
  31. ^ Smit, Renske; Bouwens, Rychard J.; Carniani, Stefano; Oesch, Pascal A.; Labbé, Ivo; Illingworth, Garth D.; Van Der Werf, Paul; Bradley, Larry D.; Gonzalez, Valentino; Hodge, Jacqueline A.; Holwerda, Benne W.; Maiolino, Roberto; Zheng, Wei (2018). "Rotation in [C II]-emitting gas in two galaxies at a redshift of 6.8". Nature. 553 (7687): 178–181. arXiv:1706.04614. Bibcode:2018Natur.553..178S. doi:10.1038/nature24631. PMID 29323299. S2CID 205261958.
  32. ^ Bouwens, Rychard (May 2017). "Astronomy: Quasars signpost massive galaxies". Nature. 545 (7655): 418–419. Bibcode:2017Natur.545..418B. doi:10.1038/545418a. PMID 28541322. S2CID 205094098.
  33. ^ Bouwens, Rychard (2018). "Distant galaxy formed stars only 250 million years after the Big Bang". Nature. 557 (7705): 312–313. Bibcode:2018Natur.557..312B. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05114-z. PMID 29765123. S2CID 21696370.