I'm a postdoctoral associate based at Rochester Institute of Technology since 2009. My research focuses on exploiting galaxy clusters as astrophysical laboratories to understand the interplay between the cooling of the intracluster medium and AGN heating. I'm one of the lead analysts of the Herschel Key Program, "Constraining the cold gas and dust in Cluster Cooling Flows" (PI: Alastair Edge, 140 hrs), the main goals of which are to understand the role of cold gas and dust, and star formation in brightest cluster galaxies in cool-core galaxy clusters.
I received my doctorate in April 2006 from the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Radioastronomie, Bonn. My PhD research work was related to the image flux ratio anomaly in the doubly-imaged strong gravitational lens system JVAS B0218+357, which I studied using the radio technique of very long baseline interferometry. Since then, my research interests have expanded into the field of galaxy clusters and, in particular, to address the issues concerning the cooling flows observed in galaxy clusters. In May 2007, I joined Thomas Reiprich's Emmy Noether Research Group at AIfA, Bonn University, to work on the SPP project with the sample of HIFLUGCS galaxy clusters.
"The duty cycle of radio-mode feedback in complete samples of clusters''
Birzan L. et al. (including Mittal R.), accepted for publication in MNRAS
"Herschel observations of extended atomic gas in the core of the Perseus cluster''
Mittal R., Oonk, J. B. R., Ferland, G. et al. accepted for publication in MNRAS
"Residual Cooling and Persistent Star Formation amid AGN Feedback in Abell 2597''
Tremblay G. R. et al. (including Mittal R.) 2012, MNRAS, 424, 1042
"Multiphase Signatures of AGN Feedback in Abell 2597''
Tremblay G. R. et al. (including Mittal R.) 2012, MNRAS, 424, 1026
"Herschel observations of the Centaurus cluster - the dynamics of cold gas in a cool core''
Mittal R., O'Dea, C. P., Ferland, G., et al. 2011b, MNRAS, 418, 2386
"The Lx-Tvir relation in Galaxy Clusters: Effects of Radiative Cooling and AGN Heating''
Mittal R., Hicks, A., Reiprich, T. H., & Jaritz, V. 2011a, A&A, 532, A133
"Herschel photometry of brightest cluster galaxies in cooling flow clusters''
Edge, A. C., Oonk, J. B. R., Mittal, R., et al. 2010a, A&A, 518, L46
"Herschel observations of FIR emission lines in brightest cluster galaxies''
-. 2010b, A&A, 518, L47
"What is a cool-core cluster? A detailed analysis of the cores of the X-ray flux-limited HIFLUGCS cluster sample'' Hudson, D. S., Mittal R., Reiprich, T. H., et al. 2010, A&A, 513, A37
"AGN heating and ICM cooling in the HIFLUGCS sample of galaxy clusters''
Mittal R., Hudson, D. S., Reiprich, T. H., & Clarke, T. 2009, A&A, 501, 835
"Free-free absorption in the gravitational lens JVAS B0218+357''
Mittal R., Porcas, R., Wucknitz, O., 2007, A&A, 447, 515
"VLBI phase-reference observations of the gravitational lens JVAS B0218+357''
Mittal R., Porcas, R., Wucknitz, O., Biggs, A., & Browne, I., 2006, A&A, 447, 515