Research

My research focuses on debris disks, which are older second generation disks around other stars. These disks, at times, show structures that are usually attributed to exoplanets. My research focuses on thermal instabilities, mainly the photoelectric instability, which can result in the same structures that are usually attributed to other processes.

Untangling Instabilities from Planets

In this project I investigated the difference that planets make in a disk that contains the photoelectric instability, and how to differentiate between then. The first phenomenom I investigated was the effect of different dust to gas ratios on the gap carved out by a planet. I found that higher ratios lead to a reduction in the height of the gap wall, in the inner and outer part of the disk.