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 hydrodynamic 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 decretion disks through boundary layer effects. This work studies the enigmatic formation of Be star disks, but also contributes to the formation and spin evolution of giant planets.
Timeline
- 2024—present: Ph.D. Astronomy, UNLV
- 2022—2024: M.S. Astronomy, UNLV