I am Madeline Overton, a PhD candidate under Rebecca Martin in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). I use hydrodynamical simulations to study circumstellar disks around giant stars. I am interested in decretion and accretion disks in the context of Be/X-ray binaries, which consist of a massive main-sequence star and a compact object companion. I investigate the dynamics of Be star disks and mass transfer between the binary components, considering factors such as retrograde motion and eccentricity. Recently, I have been exploring the formation of Be star decretion disks through boundary layer effects.
Timeline
- 2024—present: Ph.D. Astronomy, UNLV
- 2022—2024: M.S. Astronomy, UNLV