The future of protoplanetary disk models

During my PhD, I have been studying protoplanetary disks: the disks of gas and dust that surround a newly-forming star. These disks slowly evolve and clump together over the course of several million years, eventually forming new planets.

Within the next decade, both the James Webb Space Telescope and the E-ELT telescope in the Atacama desert will be operational, and we will be able to observe protoplanetary disks in much greater detail than ever before. To understand these more detailed observations, we also need more detailed computer models.

My research involves understanding the structure and chemistry of protoplanetary disks, using a computer code called ProDiMo. I have studied the disks around “T Tauri” stars similar to our own Sun, and also the disks around “brown dwarfs” (stars that are too small to fuse hydrogen into helium).

I have found that brown dwarf protoplanetary disks appear simply to be scaled-down versions of their larger T Tauri counterparts, which improves the prospects for planets being able to form around brown dwarfs.

I have also investigated the infrared spectra of T Tauri disks, analysing the spectral lines from simple gaseous molecules such as water carbon monoxide, and looking at how the evolution of small dust particles can affect the spectra. The mid-infrared spectra can tell us a lot about the planet-forming regions of the disk, and my work will help us to determine the temperatures and molecular compositions of these planet-forming regions.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/e390723f-139d-4d79-86b4-e56662ae22d0