2023 Project Description

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Investigate the gas and dust dynamics in circumbinary disks around binary star systems with implications for planet formation

Keywords:

Hydrodynamics

Numerical Astrophsyics

Supervisors

Jeremy Smallwood
Find out more about supervisors on ASIAA website

Task Description and Goals

Exoplanet observations have revealed a wide range of orbital characteristics vastly different from the solar system planets. Contrary to the naive expectation that protoplanetary disks around binary star systems are too disturbed to form planets, discoveries from ground-based and space telescopes have revealed an abundance of planets in and around binary star systems. The majority of the confirmed exoplanets are co-planar to their host star(s), which is indicative of our observational bias. However, it is more common to observe misaligned protoplanetary disks (the sites for planet formation) around binaries. Understanding how protoplanetary disks evolve in and around binaries is fundamental in explaining the formation of planetary systems since a planet's orbital identity is dependent on the disk structure. Circumbinary protoplanetary disks are observed to be misaligned to the binary orbital plane during various phases of stellar evolution. In this project, we aim to investigate the gas and dust dynamics in a misaligned circumbinary disk using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code PHANTOM. Through this project, students will learn basic knowledge of star and planet formation, and how to run and analyze hydrodynamical simulations while comparing to observations.

Required Background

Passion for astrophysical research, English proficiency, a Physics/Astrophysics background, Good knowledge of programming languages, such as Python, Fortran, MATLAB, and Mathematica.