Simon White studies the formation of galaxies and cosmic structure. With Martin Rees, he proposed a two-stage account in which extended dark haloes assemble gravitationally and luminous galaxies form through cooling and concentration of gas within them.
The key distinction is dissipative: gas can radiate away energy, whereas collisionless halo material does not cool in the same way. The cooling requirement helps determine which dark structures can host concentrated luminous systems. Their 1978 model thereby connected the dark gravitational framework to the observed scale of galaxies.[ref]
Core condensation in heavy halos by Simon D. M. White and Martin J. Rees. Abstract: hierarchical dark clustering and formation of luminous cores through dissipative cooling
Portrait of Simon White
. Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
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