Explore my work, research, and contributions to the world of astronomy!
Hello! I am a Centre for Astrophysics Research fellow at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. My primary research goal is to investigate the impact of supermassive black holes on the formation and evolution of galaxies. I obtained my Bachelors and Masters degree in Physics from University of Delhi and Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, respectively. Thereafter, I did my PhD from Ludwig Maximilian University. I have extensively used Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) and sub-mm spectroscopy for my research from some of the most competitive astronomical facilities such as the Very Large Telescope, Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-mm Array and soon, the James Webb Space Telescope. I am an active member of large international collaborations, namely GOALS, 4MOST (CHANGES), SUPER, BASS, S7 and QFeedS. Previously, I have also supported the operations of ground-based and space telescopes as an ESO fellow in Santiago, Chile and an STScI Prize Fellow in Baltimore, US. I have also led technical SPIE papers as a part of the HARMONI instrument team, where I developed new sky-subtraction methods for upcoming IFS instruments on board Extremely Large Telescopes.
The primary goal of my research projects is to search for direct or indirect evidence of how supermassive black holes affect the evolution of their host galaxies. I have been using data from telescopes such as VLT, Keck, JWST, ALMA to trace gas in multiple phases.
Browse through this page for key research highlights.
Discovery of the closest separation dual AGN in UGC 4211: Using multi-wavelength high resolution observations with state-of-the-art instrumentation, such as VLT/MUSE, ALMA, Keck/OSIRIS and HST, we find two AGN at a projected separation of ~230 pc, closest separation known yet for a black hole pair. Here's the link to the paper.
MUSE-AO observations of the Circinus galaxy: A "tuning-fork" outflow morphology in the Circinus galaxy as observed by the Adaptive Optics assisted MUSE instrument on board the VLT. Presented in Kakkad et al. (2023), this structure remained undetected in previous low resolution observations.
Spatially-resolved outflows using Integral Field Spectrographs: I have led and am involved in several projects that map the distribution of ionised gas in galaxies and characterise outflows associated with them. My future work focuses on gathering a holistic picture of outflows by using multi-wavelength observations from telescopes such as JWST, ALMA, VLT and JVLA that will target multiple gas phases. This work is done in collaboration with several international teams such as BASS, GOALS, SUPER, S7 and QFeedS (a non-exhaustive list). Check out Kakkad et al. (2016), Kakkad et al. (2018), Kakkad et al. (2020), Kakkad et al. (2022) and Kakkad et al. (2023a) for further details
Further Research details coming soon
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Under construction
Feel free to reach out to me via email at darshankakkad@gmail.com.