MIT Kavli Institute Directory

Daniel Castro

Postdoctoral Associate Postdoctoral Scholar

I am originally from Venezuela, and I studied Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh after a couple of years in the south coast of Wales (at UWCAC). In 2011 I received my Doctor in Physics degree from the Universidad Simon Bolivar, after spending 2 years at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a predoctoral fellow.

Research interests:

My research focuses on understanding the remnants of supernovae explosions, especially on studies of the characteristics of shocks in these objects and the nature of particle acceleration. The topics in which I am most interested are: (1) cosmic ray (CR) acceleration in supernova remnants (SNRs); (2) understanding the progenitors and environments of SNRs from the emission characteristics of these objects; and, (3) gamma-ray properties of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) and how these constrain broadband models.

Representative publications:

“Fermi LAT Observations of Supernova Remnants Interacting with Molecular Clouds” Castro, D., & Slane, P. 2010, ApJ, 717, 372
“Fermi-LAT Observations and a Broadband Study of Supernova Remnant CTB 109” Castro, D., Slane, P., Ellison, D. C., & Patnaude, D. J. 2012b, ApJ, 756, 88

Honors and awards:

Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellowship, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (2008-2010) Fellowship of the Academy of Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Venezuela (2008-2010