About

Lars Mattsson is pecialising in theoretical and computational studies of cosmic dust and interstellar turbulence. He received his PhD from Uppsala University in 2009, worked at the Niels Bohr Institute’s Dark Cosmology Centre in Copenhagen, and joined Nordita in 2013. His early research focused on dust formation and winds from evolved stars, alongside the build-up of dust and heavy elements in galaxies.

A major theme of his subsequent research is how dust grains grow, move and survive in turbulent interstellar gas. Combining analytical models with detailed numerical simulations, he and his collaborators have shown how turbulence can accelerate grain growth and alter the distribution of grain sizes—processes that help explain the substantial amounts of dust observed in young galaxies.

In a 2024 Nature Communications paper with Florian Kirchschlager and Frederick Gent, simulations showed that magnetic fields and the structure of interstellar gas can substantially reduce dust destruction by supernova shocks compared with simpler models. He also contributed to a 2024 study connecting dust composition and the fraction of heavy elements locked into grains across nearby and distant galaxies. The aim of these studies is to improve our understanding of how dust survives and evolves throughout cosmic history.

Recent research also extends to quantum hydrodynamics in astrophysics, exploring how quantum mechanics can be incorporated into fluid models of warm dense matter under extreme conditions. This work includes developing equations for astrophysical applications and implementing quantum hydrodynamic models in the Pencil Code simulation framework.