Research

Overview

We develop and apply theoretical and numerical models to investigate protostellar and protoplanetary disks, star and planet formation, and long-term evolution of exoplanetary systems to compliment existing and forthcoming astronomical observations.

Areas of Interest

• Protoplanetary Disks
• Planet Formation
• Exoplanets

Software Development

In addition to designing and employing large-scale numerical simulations to both understand dynamical processes and compare with observations, we develop and contribute to the following widely-used, open-source astrophysical codes:

• Athena++: GRMHD code with adaptive mesh refinement framework
• MAGRATHEA: planet structure code with fully differentiated interiors
  • Huang C., Rice D. R., Steffen J. H., (2022)
• Pencil Code: high-order finite-difference code for compressible hydrodynamic flows with magnetic fields
• PGNets: convolutional neural network to infer planet masses from protoplanetary disk gaps in ALMA observations
  • Zhang S., Zhu Z., Kang M., (2021)
• REBOUND: flexible, customizable N-body code with a variety of integrators
• REBOUNDx: REBOUND’s extended library of additional physics and effects
  • Baronett S. A., Ferich N., Tamayo D., Steffen J. H., (2022)
  • Ferich N., Baronett S. A., Tamayo D., Steffen J. H., (2022)
• REBOUND_fragmentation: fragmentation and bulk composition tracking code for the C version of REBOUND
  • Childs A. C., Steffen J. H., (2022)

Funding

We acknowledge the following funding sources for their generous support: