• Black Hole Accetion

    BLACK HOLE ACCRETION

    General relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamics.

  • Core-Collapse Supernovae

    CORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAE

    State-of-the-art neutrino radiation hydrodynamics.

  • Hydrodynamics Methods

    HYDRODYNAMICS METHODS

    Numerical methods for shock-capturing, Eulerian, multi-material hydrodynamics.

BIOSKETCH

I am a staff scientist in the Computational Physics and Methods Group (CCS-2) at Los Alamos National Laboratory. I have broad scientific interests, but find myself drawn to solving some of Nature's most complex problems on some of Earth's biggest computers. This interest first developed while I earned B.S. degress in Physics and in Space Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology. I followed this pursuit in my Ph.D. work in astrophysics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow, then as a postdoc at Princeton University before coming to LANL as a Nicholas C. Metropolis Fellow.

RESEARCH

Here is a subset of the topics I find interesting and am currently working on.

  • Black Hole Accretion
  • Matter falling into a black hole can encounter some of the most extreme conditions in the Universe. The light emitted as this happens can teach us about the physics at play in these systems, including strong gravity, plasma physics, and radiative processes. Understanding these phenomena is crucial to answering a broad set of questions about the nature of the Universe.
  • Core-collapse Supernovae
  • When a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel, it collapses and may form an enormous explosion called a core-collapse supernova. Though most agree we have at least listed the basic ingredients in producing these explosions, definitive answers about which stars explode and why remain elusive despite more than five decades of research.
  • Multiphysics Numerical Methods
  • Modern simulations are often quite sophisticated in terms of the range of included physical processes. The traditional approach to bringing these ingredients together is the simple operator split. I'm interested in exploring more advanced techniques that bring together physics that may operate on vastly different length and time scales while maintaining high accuracy and enabling efficient, highly scalable implementations.

Curriculum Vitae

  • Education
    • Ph.D. Astronomy, 2011
      University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
      Advisor: Charles F. Gammie
      Dissertation: “Self-Consistent Dynamical and Radiative Models of Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei”
    • M.S. Astronomy, 2009
      University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    • B.S. Physics, 2006
      Florida Institute of Technology
    • B.S. Space Sciences, Astronomy/Astrophysics option, 2006
      Florida Institute of Technology
  • Positions
    • Staff Scientist, June 2015–
      Nicholas C. Metropolis Postdoctoral Fellow, August 2014–June 2015
      Computational Physics and Methods, Los Alamos National Laboratory
    • Associate Research Scholar, May 2013–August 2014
      Postdoctoral Research Associate, September 2011–May 2013
      Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University
    • NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow, September 2010–September 2011
      Graduate Research Assistant, May 2007–August 2010
      Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Selected Awards, Distinctions, & Activities
    • Project Leader, ASC Eulerian Hydrodynamics Project
    • Scalable Methods Team Leader for LANL's Next Generation Code (LA Ristra) Project
    • Chair, Institutional Computing Advisory Board
    • LDRD Early Career Research award
    • Member, Horizon Collaboration
    • Member, TEAMS SciDAC collaboration
    • Member, Supernova Multi-messenger Consortium
    • Los Alamos Awards Program, CNTA Project
    • Reviewer for NASA Astrophysics Theory Program
    • Reviewer for DOE ASCR ALCC Program
    • Reviewer for LANL Institutional Computing
    • Reviewer for LDRD ER NPAC
    • Reviewer for LANL CSES Program
    • Reviewer for NASA's Fermi Guest Investigator Program
    • PI/Co-PI for 100+ million core-hours of computing time since 2012
    • Organizer for funded program at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science
    • Referee for multiple journals including Astrophysical Journal and MNRAS
    • NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship
    • Best Graduate Paper/Presentation, 9th LCI International Conference on High-Performance Clustered Computing
    • Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society
    • Florida Insitute of Technology Presidential Scholarship
    • Florida Bright Futures Scholarship
  • Mentoring
    • Postdoctoral Scientists—Roseanne Cheng (Metropolis Fellow), Jonas Lippuner (CNLS Fellow), Jonah Miller (CNLS Fellow), Benjamin Ryan (Director's Fellow), Ingo Tews (CNLS Fellow)
    • Graduate Students—Benjamin Ryan (UIUC), Cole Holcomb (Princeton), Sherwood Richers (Caltech), Timothy Waters (UNLV), Patrick Mullen (UIUC)
    • Schools—2016 & 2019 ISTI/ASC Co-Design Summer Schools
  • Invited Talks
    • Simulations of Core-Collapse Supernova Explosions, XXX IUPAP Conference on Computational Physics, Davis, CA, July 2018
    • TBD: Transporting non-Bosons for Dummies, Microphysics in Relativistic Astrophysics, NSCL, East Lansing, MI, July 2017
    • Results of Core-collapse Modeling for a Variety of Progenitors, Stellar Hydro Days IV, UVic, Victoria, BC, May 2017
    • Overview of Core-collapse Explosion Mechanisms, Phenomena, Physics, and Puzzles of Massive Stars and their Explosive Outcomes, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, CA, March 2017
    • Core-collapse Modeling in 2030 and Beyond, Workshop on core-collapse supernovae, their signatures in gravitational waves, and their detection with ground-based laser interferometers, Pasadena, CA, March 2017
    • GR Transport Methods, Horizon Collaboration Meeting, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, January 2017
    • A New Class of Hydrodynamics Solvers in xRage: a Progress Report, EAP Colloquium, LANL, Los Alamos, NM, September 2016
    • Multi-physics Models of Black Hole Accretion, Simulations and Modeling of Relativistic MHD Accretion Discs, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, July 2016
    • The Directionally-unsplit Hydro Method in the Fornax Code, Hydro Study Group, LANL, Los Alamos, NM, October 2015
    • Simulating Extreme Astrophysics: Black Hole Accretion and Core-collapse Supernovae, University of Virginia/NRAO Joint Colloquium, Charlottesville, VA, February 2014
    • Petascale Challenges in Astrophysics: Core-collapse Supernovae, Computational Sciences Applications Performing at Petascale Level and Beyond, SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, Boston, MA, February 2013
    • Multidimensional Hydrodynamics of Core-collapse Supernovae, Core-collapse Supernovae: Models and Observable Signals, Institute for Nuclear Theory, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, July 2012
    • Numerical Models of Sgr A* and Beyond, Bringing Black Holes into Focus: the Event Horizon Telescope, Tucson, AZ, January 2012

PUBLICATIONS

Summary (updated 2/1/19)
Citations: 1234
h-index: 19

TEAM

 JOSH DOLENCE

STAFF, COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS & METHODS, CCS-2

Core-collapse supernovae, black hole accretion, numerical methods

 ROSEANNE CHENG

METROPOLIS FELLOW, COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS & METHODS, CCS-2

Tidal disruption events, overset mesh methods

 JONAH MILLER

CNLS FELLOW, COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS & METHODS, CCS-2

Numerical relativity, numerical methods, hydrodynamics

 BENJAMIN RYAN

DIRECTOR'S FELLOW, COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS & METHODS, CCS-2

Black hole astrophysics, radiation transport, magnetohydrodynamics, numerical methods

 INGO TEWS

CNLS FELLOW, NUCLEAR AND PARTICLE PHYSICS, ASTROPHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY, T-2

Nuclear matter, chiral EFT, nuclear astrophysics

CONTACT

Reach out if you're interested in some of my work or in opportunities to get involved.

  • Josh Dolence
  •  jdolence@lanl.gov
  •  +1 (505) 665-5177
  • PO Box 1663
  • MS D413
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Los Alamos, NM 87545