Professor Anastasia Fialkov started her PhD in the field of theoretical string cosmology searching for imprints of illusive string theory on the largest cosmological scales. She then switched to a more close-to-home topic of theoretical radio astronomy and continued her PhD studying imprints of first stars and black holes on the 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen atoms filling the bulk of the Universe during the first billion years of cosmic history.
After receiving her PhD in November 2013, Anastasia continued her research on astrophysics and cosmology of the early Universe at the Ecole Normale Superiore in Paris. She then moved to the Institute of Theory and Computation at the Centre for Astrophysics at Harvard University. There Anastasia broadened her expertise and worked on a large variety of topics including intermediate mass black holes, Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), galaxy formation in alternative cosmologies. She also transitioned from being a pure theorists to working closely with radio observers joining first the NenuFAR and LEDA collaborations.
At present Anastasia is leading the large and vibrant Cosmic Dawn group at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. In addition to the purely theoretical research, the group is heavily involved in statistical analysis of existing limits on the 21-cm signal coming from different radio telescopes including HERA, SARAS, REACH. Another topic explored by Anastasia and her students by means of hydrodynamical simulations run on the national HPC facility DiRAC is galaxy formation in alternative dark matter cosmologies.
From dark ages to present: astrophysics and cosmology with the 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen, intensity mapping of other molecular and atomic lines, structure formation, nature of dark matter, transient phenomena such as Fast Radio Bursts, low frequency radio observations and instrumentation.
2013 Ph.D. in Physics Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2008 M.Sc. in Physics, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel..
2006 B.Sc. in Physics & B.A. in Electrical Engineering (both majors Cum Laude), Technion, Haifa, Israel.
First Astrophysical Constraints at Cosmic Dawn from the SARAS3 Upper Limit on the Sky-Averaged 21-cm Signal, H. T. J. Bevins, A. Fialkov, et al., Nature Astronomy, 6, 1473.
Impact of the Primordial Stellar Initial Mass Function on the 21-cm Signal, T. Gessey-Jones, N. Sartorio, A. Fialkov, G. M. Mirouh, M. Magg, E. de Lera Acedo, W. J. Handley, R. Barkana, 2022, MNRAS, 516, 841.
What it takes to measure reionization with fast radio bursts, S. Heimersheim, N. Sartorio, A. Fialkov, D. Lorimer, 2022, ApJ, 933, 57.
HERA Phase I Limits on the Cosmic 21-cm Signal: Constraints on Astrophysics and Cosmology During the Epoch of Reionization, The HERA Collaboration; including A. Fialkov, 2022, ApJ, 924, 51.
The subtlety of Ly-α photons: changing the expected range of the 21-cm signal, I. Reis, A. Fialkov, R. Barkana, 2021, MNRAS, 506, 5479.
High-redshift radio galaxies: a potential new source of 21-cm fluctuations, I. Reis, A. Fialkov, R. Barkana, 2020, MNRAS, 499, 5993.
First star-forming structures in fuzzy cosmic filaments, P. Mocz, A. Fialkov, et al., 2019, PRL, 123, 1301.
A Fast Radio Burst Occurs Every Second throughout the Observable Universe, A. Fialkov & A. Loeb, 2017, ApJL, 846, L27.
The Observable Signature of Late Heating of the Universe During Cosmic Reionization, A. Fialkov, R. Barkana & E. Visbal, 2014, Nature, 506, 197.