Speaker
Description
Protoplanetary disks are the natural outcome of low-mass star formation and the environments within which planets are born. In the classical picture, a collapsing molecular cloud core gives rise to a protostar surrounded by a centrifugally supported disk, where submicron-sized dust grains grow and eventually assemble into planetary systems. Disk evolution is regulated by angular momentum transport through viscous and gravitational torques, as well as by mass and angular momentum loss in magnetically driven disk winds. In reality, however, these disks are shaped by a rich interplay of physical processes, including dust-gas dynamics, magnetohydrodynamics, volatile transport, external photoevaporation, chemistry, and disk instabilities.
In this talk, I will discuss how these processes influence the formation and long-term evolution of protoplanetary disks, and how they affect the environments in which planets form. I will highlight my work on theoretical and hydrodynamic modeling of disks, with an emphasis on connecting models to observations from current and future ground- and space-based facilities.