Research Group: Astronomy Unit
Number of Students: 1
Length of Study in Years: 4 years
Full-time Project: yes

Project Description

The discovery of many 1000s of exoplanets has led to questions about the origins of these systems. It is believed planets form in the protoplanetary discs, composed of gas and dust, that are observed to orbit around young stars. Figure 1 shows an observation from ALMA of a protoplanetary disc around the T Tauri star HL Tau. The disc is seen to be highly structured, possibly because of the presence of planets that are forming. Research in the Astronomy Unit at QMUL focusses on developing a theoretical understanding of how the gravitational interaction between a protoplanetary disc and embedded planets leads to structuring of the disc through the formation of spiral waves, gaps and vortices. A related issue is how these interactions influence the orbital evolution of embedded planets and possibly drive large scale migration, and how gas and dust from the disc accretes onto planets as they grow in mass. A PhD project in this area will involve conducting state of the art hydrodynamic and/or magneto-hydrodynamic simulations, and some analytical theory, to obtain a full understanding of the processes involved. An image taken from such a hydrodynamic simulation is shown in Figure 2. Scenarios involving planets forming around single stars or in binary star systems may be considered as part of this project.

Recent relevant publications

Migration of Jupiter mass planet in low viscosity discs 

Low-mass planet migration in three-dimensional wind-driven inviscid discs 

Migrating super-Earths in low-viscosity discs 

SPCS Academics: Prof Richard Nelson