Kyle Akira Rocha

Office: SERF 406

9500 Gilman Drive

La Jolla, CA 92093

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego studying the dynamic lives of massive stars – how they evolve, interact with other companion stars / compact objects, and go on to merge as gravitational wave sources. I use computational simulations to model binary stars, focusing on individual systems using MESA, to large populations of binaries using POSYDON. I am particularly interested in understanding what we can learn about binary stellar evolution through populations of X-ray binaries and high energy transients, as well as exceptional systems which challenge theory.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles and moved north for my undergraduate at the University of California Santa Cruz (B.S. 2018). I received my Ph.D. at Northwestern University working with Prof. Vicky Kalogera and am now enjoying the sunshine in San Diego. In my free time I enjoy surfing, beach volleyball, and running.

selected publications

ApJ

Mass Transfer in Eccentric Orbits with Self-consistent Stellar Evolution

Kyle Akira Rocha, Rachel Hur, Vicky Kalogera, and 12 more authors

\apj, Apr 2025

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{2025ApJ...983...39R,
  author = {{Rocha}, Kyle Akira and {Hur}, Rachel and {Kalogera}, Vicky and {Gossage}, Seth and {Sun}, Meng and {Doctor}, Zoheyr and {Andrews}, Jeff J. and {Bavera}, Simone S. and {Briel}, Max M. and {Fragos}, Tassos and {Kovlakas}, Konstantinos and {Kruckow}, Matthias U. and {Misra}, Devina and {Xing}, Zepei and {Zapartas}, Emmanouil},
  title = {{Mass Transfer in Eccentric Orbits with Self-consistent Stellar Evolution}},
  journal = {\apj},
  keywords = {Astronomical simulations, Binary stars, Close binary stars, Compact binary stars, Interacting binary stars, Compact objects, Black holes, Neutron stars, Gravitational wave sources, Stellar evolutionary models, Stellar populations, 1857, 154, 254, 283, 801, 288, 162, 1108, 677, 2046, 1622, Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena},
  year = {2025},
  month = apr,
  volume = {983},
  number = {1},
  eid = {39},
  pages = {39},
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/adb970},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  eprint = {2411.11840},
  primaryclass = {astro-ph.SR},
  adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025ApJ...983...39R},
  adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}

ApJ

To Be or Not To Be: The Role of Rotation in Modeling Galactic Be X-Ray Binaries

Kyle Akira Rocha, Vicky Kalogera, Zoheyr Doctor, and 11 more authors

\apj, Aug 2024

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{2024ApJ...971..133R,
  author = {{Rocha}, Kyle Akira and {Kalogera}, Vicky and {Doctor}, Zoheyr and {Andrews}, Jeff J. and {Sun}, Meng and {Gossage}, Seth and {Bavera}, Simone S. and {Fragos}, Tassos and {Kovlakas}, Konstantinos and {Kruckow}, Matthias U. and {Misra}, Devina and {Srivastava}, Philipp M. and {Xing}, Zepei and {Zapartas}, Emmanouil},
  title = {{To Be or Not To Be: The Role of Rotation in Modeling Galactic Be X-Ray Binaries}},
  journal = {\apj},
  keywords = {Astronomical simulations, Binary stars, High mass x-ray binary stars, Be stars, Stellar rotation, 1857, 154, 733, 142, 1629, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics},
  year = {2024},
  month = aug,
  volume = {971},
  number = {2},
  eid = {133},
  pages = {133},
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ad5955},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  eprint = {2403.07172},
  primaryclass = {astro-ph.HE},
  adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024ApJ...971..133R},
  adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}

ApJ

Active Learning for Computationally Efficient Distribution of Binary Evolution Simulations

Kyle Akira Rocha, Jeff J. Andrews, Christopher P. L. Berry, and 13 more authors

\apj, Oct 2022

DOI arXiv Bib

@article{2022ApJ...938...64R,
  author = {{Rocha}, Kyle Akira and {Andrews}, Jeff J. and {Berry}, Christopher P.~L. and {Doctor}, Zoheyr and {Katsaggelos}, Aggelos K. and {Serra P{\'e}rez}, Juan Gabriel and {Marchant}, Pablo and {Kalogera}, Vicky and {Coughlin}, Scott and {Bavera}, Simone S. and {Dotter}, Aaron and {Fragos}, Tassos and {Kovlakas}, Konstantinos and {Misra}, Devina and {Xing}, Zepei and {Zapartas}, Emmanouil},
  title = {{Active Learning for Computationally Efficient Distribution of Binary Evolution Simulations}},
  journal = {\apj},
  keywords = {Astronomical simulations, Classification, Regression, Multiple star evolution, 1857, 1907, 1914, 2153, Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, Computer Science - Machine Learning},
  year = {2022},
  month = oct,
  volume = {938},
  number = {1},
  eid = {64},
  pages = {64},
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/ac8b05},
  archiveprefix = {arXiv},
  eprint = {2203.16683},
  primaryclass = {astro-ph.SR},
  adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2022ApJ...938...64R},
  adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}