Research

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A single dish from the VLAStar formation is one of the most important processes to have shaped the visible universe. Winds from massive stars and their supernovae pollute the interstellar and intergalactic medium with the heavy elements responsible for life, affecting the characteristics of future stellar populations and limiting the total number of stars formed. In order to understand the evolution of galaxies, it is therefore important to study how stars form from clouds of molecular gas in a variety of conditions throughout cosmic history, and especially during the epoch of peak star formation ~10 billion years ago (cosmic noon).

CO map of the strongly lensed galaxy RX J0911+0551I observe the molecular gas of galaxies at cosmic noon using radio telescopes like the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). My molecular gas observations, in conjunction with other multi-wavelength data, address the physical conditions and dynamical states of star-forming galaxies in the early Universe, thereby helping determine their connection to local galaxies observed today.

My research addresses whether star formation efficiencies were genuinely higher in the early universe, the mechanisms which drive high star formation rates, the role of supermassive black holes in quenching periods of rapid star formation, and biases introduced by the gas and star formation tracers used to make our observations. I use both the statistical properties of galaxy populations and detailed characterizations of individual galaxies to build and test astronomers’ modern models of galaxy evolution.

Awards & Press

  • Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 2 Grant ($600k SGD research grant), Yale-NUS, 2021.
  • Yale-NUS Internal Seed Grant ($80k SGD research grant), Yale-NUS, 2019.
  • JY Pillay Global Asia Grant ($24,999 SGD workshop grant), Yale-NUS, 2019.
  • ALMA Ambassadors ($10k research grant), NRAO, 2017.
  • McMaster Daily News, Astronomy fellow looking 10 billion years into cosmic history to unlock the secrets of dusty galaxies, 2016.
  • William & Caroline Herschel Postdoctoral Fellowship, McMaster University, 2016-2018.
  • International Travel Grant, AAS, 2015.
  • American Fellowship ($20k stipend), American Association of University Women, Summer 2012-2013.

     

Refereed Publications

  1. The Unistellar Exoplanet Campaign: Citizen Science Results and Inherent Education Opportunities D. Peluso, 10 others, & Unistellar Citizen Scientists (incl. C. E. Sharon), 2023, PASP, 135, 015001.
  2. A ∼600 pc view of the strongly-lensed, massive main sequence galaxy J0901: a baryon-dominated, thick, turbulent, rotating disk with a clumpy cold gas ring at z = 2.259 D. Liu, N. M. Foster Schreiber, R. Genzel, D. Lutz, S. H. Price, L. Lee, A. J. Baker, A. Burkert, R. T. Coogan, R. I. Davies, R. L. Davies, R. Herrera-Camus, T. Kodama, M. M., Lee, A. Nestor, C. Pulsoni, A. Renzini, C. E. Sharon, T. T. Shimizu, L. J. Tacconi, K. Tadaki, & H. Ubler 2023 ApJ, 942, 98.
  3. A 16 Hour Transit of Kepler-167e Observed by the Ground-based Unistellar Telescope Network A. Perrocheau, 4 others, & Unistellar Citizen Scientists (incl. C. E. Sharon), 2022, ApJL, 940, 39.
  4. Identifying AGN host galaxies with convolutional neural networks Z. Guo (Yale-NUS student), J. Wu, & C. E. Sharon , 2022 Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop—Neural Information Processing Systems, arXiv: 2212:07881.
  5. Red quasars blow out molecular gas from galaxies during the peak of cosmic star formation H. R. Stacey, T. Costa, J. P. McKean, C. E. Sharon, G. Calisto-Rivera, E. Glikman, & P. P. van der Werf, 2022, MNRAS, 517, 3377.
  6. COLDz: Probing Cosmic Star Formation With Radio Free-free Emission H. S. B. Algera, J. A. Hodge, D. A. Riechers, S. K. Leslie, I. Smail, M. Aravena, E. da Cunha, E. Daddi, R. Decarli, M. Dickinson, H. B. Gim, B. Magnelli, E. J. Murphy, R. Pavesi, M. Sargent, C. E. Sharon, J. Wagg, F. Walter, & M. Yun, 2022, ApJ, 924, 76.
  7. COLDz: Deep 34 GHz Continuum Observations and Free-free Emission in High-redshift Star-forming Galaxies H. S. B. Algera, J. A. Hodge, D. Riechers, E. J. Murphy, R. Pavesi, M. Aravena, E. Daddi, R. Decarli, M. Dickinson, M. Sargent, C. E. Sharon, & J. Wagg 2021, ApJ , 912, 73.
  8. Turbulent Gas in Lensed Planck-Selected Starbursts at z∼1–3 K. C. Harrington, A. Weiß, M. S. Yun, B. Magnelli, C. E. Sharon, T. K. D. Leung, A. Vishwas, Q. D. Wang, E. F. Jiménez-Andrade, D. T. Frayer, D. Liu, P. Garcia, E. Romano-Díaz, B. L. Frye, S. Jarugula, F. Bertoldi, T. Badescu, D. Berman, H. Dannerbauer, T. Díaz Sánchez, L. Grassitelli, P. Kamieneski, W. J. Kim, A. Kirkpatrick, J. D. Lowenthal, H. Messias, J. Puschnig, G. J. Stacey, & P. Torne, 2021, ApJ, 912, 73
  9. COLDz: A High Space Density of of Massive Dusty Starbursts Galaxies ∼1 Billion Years After the Big Bang D. A. Riechers, J. A. Hodge, R. Pavesi, E. Daddi, R. Decarli, R. J. Ivison, C. E. Sharon, F. Walter, M. Aravena, P. L. Capak, C. L. Carilli, P. Cox, E. da Cunha, H. Dannerbauer, M. Dickinson, R. Neri, & J. Wagg, 2020, ApJ, 895, 81
  10. Resolved Molecular Gas and Star Formation Properties of the Strongly Lensed Galaxy SDSS J0901+1814, C. E. Sharon, A. S. Tagore, A.J. Baker, J. Rivera, C. R. Keeton II, L. J. Tacconi, D. Lutz, D. J. Wilner, A. E. Shapley, H. Lin, T. Diehl, S. S. Allam, and D. L. Tucker, 2019, ApJ, 879, 52
  11. CO Emission in Infrared-Selected Active Galactic Nuclei A. Kirkpatrick, C. E. Sharon, E. Keller, & A. Pope, 2019, ApJ, 879, 41
  12. COLDz: Shape of the CO Luminosity Function at High Redshift and the Cold Gas History of the Universe D. A. Riechers, R. Pavesi, C. E. Sharon, J. A. Hodge, R. Decarli, F. Walter, C. L. Carilli, M. Aravena, E. da Cunha, E. Daddi, M. Dickinson, I. Smail, P. L. Capak, R. J. Ivison, M. Sargent, N. Scoville, & J. Wagg, 2019, ApJ, 872, 7
  13. The CO Luminosity Density at High-z (COLDz) Survey: A Sensitive, Large Area Blind Search for Low-J CO Emission from Cold Gas in the Early Universe with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array R. Pavesi, C. E. Sharon, D. Riechers, J. Hodge, R. Decarli, F. Walter, C. Carilli, E. Daddi, I. Smail, M. Dickinson, R. Ivison, M. Sargent, E. da Cunha, M. Aravena, J. Darling, V. Smolc ̆ic ́, N. Scoville, P. Capak, & J. Wagg 2018, ApJ, 864, 49
  14. Hidden In Plain Sight: A Massive, Dusty Starburst in A Galaxy Protocluster at z=5.7 in the COSMOS Field R. Pavesi, D. A. Riechers, C. E. Sharon, V. Smolcic, A. L. Faisst, E. Schinnerer, C. L. Carilli, P. L. Capak, N. Scoville, & G. J. Stacey, 2018, ApJ, 861, 43
  15. CO-Free Star Formation and Black Hole Activity in 3C368 at z=1.131: Coeval Growth of Stellar and Supermassive Black Hole Masses, C. Lamarche, G. J. Stacey, D. Brisbin, C. Ferkinhoff, S. Hailey-Dunsheath, T. Nikola, D. Riechers, C. E. Sharon, H. Spoon, and A. Vishwas, 2017, ApJ, 836,123.
  16. ALMA Reveals Weak [NII] Emission in “Typical” Galaxies and Intense Starbursts at z=5-6, R. Pavesi, D. Riechers, P. Capak, C. Carilli, C. E. Sharon, G. Stacey, A. Karim, N. Scoville, and V. Smolcic, 2016, ApJ, 832, 151
  17. A Total Molecular Gas Mass Census in z~2-3 Star-forming Galaxies: Low-J CO Excitation Probes of Galaxies’ Evolutionary States, C. E. Sharon, D. Riechers, J. Hodge, C. Carilli, F. Walter, A. Weiß, and K. Knudsen, 2016, ApJ, 827, 18.
  18. COLDz: Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array discovery of a gas-rich galaxy in COSMOS, L. Lentati, J. Wagg, C. L. Carilli, D. Riechers, P. Capak, F. Walter, M. Aravena, E. da Cunha, J. A. Hodge, R. J. Ivison, I. Smail, C. E. Sharon, E. Daddi, R. Decarli, M. Dickinson, M. Sargent, N. Scoville, & V. Smolcic, 2015, ApJ, 800, 67L.
  19. Excitation Conditions in the Multi-component Submillimeter Galaxy SMM J00266+1708, C. E. Sharon, A. J. Baker, A. I. Harris, L. J. Tacconi, D. Lutz, and S. N. Longmore, 2015, ApJ, 798, 133.
  20. VLA Mapping of the CO(1-0) Line in SMM J14011+0252, C. E. Sharon, A. J. Baker, A. I. Harris, and A. P. Thomson, 2013, ApJ, 765, 6
  21. JVLA imaging of 12CO J=1-0 and free-free emission in lensed submillimetre galaxies, A. P. Thomson, R. J. Ivison, I. Smail, A. M. Swinbank, A. Weiss, J. P. Kneib, P. P. Papadopoulos, A. J. Baker, C. E. Sharon, and G. A. van Moorsel, 2012, MNRAS, 425, 2203
  22. CO(J->1-0) in z>2 Quasar Host Galaxies: No Evidence for Extended Molecular Gas Reservoirs, D. A. Riechers, C. L. Carilli, R. J. Maddalena, J. Hodge, A. I. Harris, A. J. Baker, F. Walter, J. Wagg, P. A. Vanden Bout, A. Weiss, and C. E. Sharon, 2011, ApJ, 739, L32
  23. CO J=1-0 spectroscopy of four submillimeter galaxies with the Zpectrometer on the Green Bank Telescope, A. I. Harris, A. J. Baker, S. G. Zonak, C. E. Sharon, R. Genzel, K. Rauch, G. Watts, and R. Creager, 2010, ApJ, 723, 1139
  24. F, G, K, M Spectral Standards in the Y Band (0.95-1.11 um), C. E. Sharon, L. Hillenbrand, W. Fischer, and S. Edwards, 2010, AJ, 139: 646
  25. The X-ray luminosity function of AGN at z~3, J. Aird, K. Nandra, A. Georgakakis, E. S. Laird, C. C. Steidel, and C. E. Sharon, 2008, MNRAS, 387, 883

Recent Talks (since 2017)