Research

Characterising the protoplanetary discs of young intermediate mass stars

At University of Leeds I worked with Dr Olja Panić on an ALMA survey of Herbig Ae stars that possess massive protoplanetary discs, with this work becoming the main part of my final PhD thesis. With these observations of 1.3mm continuum and CO isotopologues, I studied protoplanetary discs in depth by characterising the distribution of local gas and dust; the two components that act as both the natal material from which an exoplanet grows, and also the medium in which embedded planets leave their observable signatures for us to decode. Through this work we were able to assess the evolutionary stage of the discs and estimate the amount of material that was present and that could potentially go on to form giant planets. In depth studies of HD100546 and HD141569 (figure to the right) were published and links can be found below.

Related published work: