Matthias Ehle
ESA XMM-Newton

"jamboree" of June 22, 2006: 

Since 2000 I am working at the XMM-Newton SOC in the User Support
Group and EPIC Instrument Dedicated Team.

In 1995 I received my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Radio 
Astronomy in Bonn, studying magnetic fields and properties of  the
diffuse ISM in face-on spiral galaxies.

In 1996/97 I did a Post doc at the Australia Telescope National 
Facility in Sydney to investigate the evolution of galactic halos. 
I also performed HI detection experiments of candidates for dwarf 
galaxies and studied intergalactic magnetic fields towards AGNs. 
Other duties included an investigation of the polarization 
characteristics of the ATCA receivers and being duty astronomer  at
the ATCA and Parkes telescopes.

Before joining ESA, I worked as research assistant in the X-ray
astronomy group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial 
Physics in Garching and developed EPIC-pn specific SAS packages.

The research I am currently doing is part of an comprehensive 
approach involving multi-wavelength (X-ray, radio continuum, HI 
and optical) high-sensitivity observations of a sample of actively 
star-forming edge-on galaxies. 

It is still a matter of debate how the halo gas is ionized and 
heated: are these processes taking place in the disk and is the
gas  transferred into the halo afterwards, or is the halo gas of
neutral  origin and ionized by star-formation in the disk and/or by
heating  processes which are working in the halo?  In addition,
comparing energy densities of magnetic fields and  thermal gas can
address the question of how important magnetic  fields are for the
dynamics and evolution of galactic halos.

Recently I started to expand the study of extra-planar gas and 
magnetic fields on cluster spiral galaxies. Sometimes, these 
objects are found to be affected by ram pressure stripping or 
tidal interactions as they travel through the cluster 
intergalactic medium.