Planet formation in dusty discs around young stars
Supervisor: Prof Matthew Bate
Current observational facilities, particularly the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA), the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), the VLT/SPHERE instrument, and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), are providing images of discs of dust and gas around young stars at unprecedented resolutions and sensitivities. These observations are providing large samples of discs with measured masses and sizes, and that display a wide variety of structures (e.g. dust rings, spirals, and arcs), and that are at different evolutionary stages (e.g. Class 0, I, and Class II young stellar objects).
The broad aim of this PhD project is to use hydrodynamical models of disc formation and evolution to extend our understanding of the origin of the diversity of protoplanetary discs, the physical processes that drive their evolution, and how planet formation occurs within these discs. To date, most simulations of star formation only consider the gas in these discs (e.g., Bate 2018; Elsender & Bate 2021). However, to understand the origins of the dust structures that are observed in discs, and to study how planet formation begins and develops, such simulations need to be extended to model both dust growth and dynamics (e.g. radial migration, dust traps) in the discs.
In Bate (2022), I began investigating dust growth during the early stages of star formation, the first time this had been studying in three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations. Over the past two years my ex-PhD student, Daniel Elsender, and I have developed the methods required to model both dust growth (using the Bate 2022 method) and dust dynamics (a combination of Elsender & Bate 2024 and Hutchison et al. 2018). The next step, and the main focus of this PhD project, is to perform simulations of the formation of isolated stars, multiple star systems, and eventually the formation of stellar groups/clusters in which the gas and the dust are evolved together, to understand in much greater detail how planet formation begins in young discs and how the observed dust structures may arise.
This project will involve performing and analysing radiation hydrodynamical simulations of star formation and protoplanetary discs that include dust growth and dynamics using a state-of-the-art smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code. You will learn aspects of astrophysical fluid dynamics (and perhaps magnetohydrodynamics), and how dust and gas interact during star and planet formation. You will learn how to analysis and visualise large computational datasets. The project may involve some parallel programming (both OpenMP and MPI), and comparison of the numerical models with analytical theory and observations. There may also be opportunities to work with observers at Exeter and elsewhere to model specific star/disc systems.
For further information, please visit my webpage, look at the papers below, and/or email me at: M.R.Bate@exeter.ac.uk
Elsender & Bate (2021, MNRAS, 508, 5279)