David Michael Hernandez, Astrophysicist
MPC Fellow and ITC Associate
Harvard--Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
dmhernandez at cfa.harvard.edu
Biographical Sketch
¡Hola! David M. Hernández (not to be confused with
this David Hernandez
) is a theoretical and computational astrophysicist. He is a
Minor Planet Center
Fellow and
Institute for Theory and Computation
associate at the Harvard--Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). David obtained his Bachelor of Science degree at the
University of Arizona
, where he was an
Arizona Flinn Scholar
and
U.S. Goldwater Scholar
. David completed his PhD in June 2018 at
MIT
, where he was an
NSF Graduate Research Fellow
, and held a three-year MIT Lyons fellowship and a Shah Zion fellowship. His thesis,
"Solving the N-body problem in astrophysics''
, was supervised by
Ed Bertschinger
. David's thesis committee also included
Mark Vogelsberger
and
Jesse Thaler
. Since his PhD, David has held postdoctoral positions, chronologically, at MIT, the CfA,
RIKEN CCS
, and again at the CfA.
David's research focuses on applications of the mathematical N-body problem, which describes the motions of planets, stars, and galaxies.
Past and Present Collaborators
Eric Agol
,
Edmund Bertschinger
,
Romeel Dave
,
Walter Dehnen
,
Sam Hadden
,
Matthew J. Holman
,
Junichiro Makino
,
Margaret Pan
,
, Hanno Rein
,
Daniel Tamayo
,
Frank van den Bosch
,
Long Wang
.
Jack Wisdom
.
Codes
Links to some codes I have worked on are available below. For other codes, feel free to contact me.
celmech
EnckeHH
MERCURIUS
(part of Rebound)
NbodyGradient
ReboundX
Universal.c
. This version has been updated from the version in Wisdom and Hernandez (2015), as described in Hernandez and Holman (2020).
Publications
A more up to date listing may be found on
NASA ADS
''On the reliability of simulations of collisional stellar systems''
Long Wang and
David M. Hernandez
2022, submitted to
MNRAS.
''Stepsize errors in the N-body problem: discerning Mercury’s true possible long-term orbits''
David M. Hernandez
, Richard E. Zeebe, Sam Hadden 2022, accepted by
MNRAS.
''A differentiable N-body code for transit timing and dynamical modeling. I. Algorithm and derivatives''
Eric Agol,
David M. Hernandez
, Zachary Langford 2021,
MNRAS
507
, 1582.
''Significant Improvement in Planetary System Simulations from Statistical Averaging''
David M. Hernandez
, Eric Agol, Matthew J. Holman, and Sam Hadden 2021,
RNAAS
5
, 77.
''ENCKEHH: an integrator for gravitational dynamics with a dominant mass that achieves optimal error behaviour''
David M. Hernandez
and Matthew J. Holman 2021,
MNRAS
502
, 556.
''Refining the transit timing and photometric analysis of TRAPPIST-1: Masses, radii, densities, dynamics, and ephemerides''
Eric Agol and 34 coauthors including
David M. Hernandez
2020,
PSJ
2
, 1.
''Are long-term N-body simulations reliable?''
David M. Hernandez
, Sam Hadden, and Junichiro Makino 2020,
MNRAS
493
, 1913.
''REBOUNDx: a library for adding conservative and dissipative forces to otherwise symplectic N-body integrations''
Daniel Tamayo, Hanno Rein, Pengshuai Shi, and
David M. Hernandez
2020,
MNRAS
491
, 2885.
''Improving the accuracy of simulated chaotic N-body orbits using smoothness''
David M. Hernandez
2019,
MNRAS
490
, 4175.
''Should N-body integrators be symplectic everywhere in phase space?''
David M. Hernandez
2019,
MNRAS
486
, 5231.
''Hybrid symplectic integrators for planetary dynamics''
Hanno Rein,
David M. Hernandez
, Daniel Tamayo, and 6 coauthors 2019,
MNRAS
485
, 5490.
''The nature of the TRAPPIST--1 exoplanets''
Simon L. Grimm and 26 coauthors including
David M. Hernandez
2018,
A&A
613
, A68.
''Time-symmetric integration in astrophysics''
David M. Hernandez
and Edmund Bertschinger 2018,
MNRAS
475
, 5570.
''A study of symplectic integrators for planetary system problems: error analysis and comparisons''
David M. Hernandez
and Walter Dehnen 2017,
MNRAS
468
, 2614.
''Symplectic fourth-order maps for the collisional N-body problem''
Walter Dehnen and
David M. Hernandez
2017,
MNRAS
465
, 1201.
''Fast and reliable symplectic integration for planetary system N-body problems''
David M. Hernandez
2016,
MNRAS
458
, 4285.
''A Fast and Accurate Universal Kepler Solver without Stumpff Series''
Jack Wisdom and
David M. Hernandez
2015,
MNRAS
453
, 3015.
''Symplectic integration for the collisional gravitational N-body problem''
David M. Hernandez
and Edmund Bertschinger 2015,
MNRAS
452
, 1934.