Matthew Thomas

PhD Student

University of Melbourne

Biography

My name is Matt Thomas, I'm a third year PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne working with Prof. Michele Trenti on gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and the SpIRIT nano-satellite mission. I completed my Masters in 2020 with Michele working on the SkyHopper nano-satellite concept - a small infrared space telescope designed to photometrically identifying high redshift GRBs from their Lyman-alpha break. Since the SkyHopper concept did not receive funding (yet!), for my PhD I have transitioned to working on the SpIRIT nano-satellite, which will fly as part of a constellation of miniature X-ray telescopes (the Italian HERMES pathfinder missions) designed to triangulate the position of GRBs and high energy transients on the sky. My work so far has involved quantifying the localisation capabilities of the SpIRIT + HERMES pathfinder constellation, and I plan to extend this to determine how many satellites we need to enable follow-up observations of a large fraction of GRB afterglows. I am also working on developing a Markov Chain Monte Carlo framework to parameterise the high energy photon emission from GRBs to gain insight into the nature of the GRB central engine and the properties of the relativistic jet.