Formation of Accretion Disks in Star Formation
Chin-Fei Lee (Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica)
Stars are the building blocks of our Galaxy and thus their formation has direct influences on the evolution of our Galaxy. Moreover, the formation of low-mass stars like our Sun and their planets has direct implications on the formation of our Solar System and the origin of life. Although low-mass star formation is of fundamental importance, the detailed process is still not yet fully understood.
HH 111 is a young protostellar system in Orion and has an accretion disk with a radius of ~ 200 au around the central protostar (baby star) (https://alma-telescope.jp/en/news/spiral-201911). This disk has a pair of spiral arms that are believed to drive the accretion to feed the central protostar into a mature star like our Sun. We have obtained data from ALMA (the largest ground-based radio interferometer https://alma-telescope.jp/en/) for the envelope around the disk. In this project, we will learn how to use the ALMA data to derive the physical properties, e.g., density, temperature and kinematics, of the envelope in order to determine how the envelope material falls on to the disk and powers the spiral arms, and thus the formation of the central protostar.
Required Background:
Programming Languages such as Python Scripting or C/C++. Some Unix/Linux experience is useful.
Fundamental knowledge of physics, in particular Newtonian mechanics