Alanna Hughes
Wesleyan University, CT·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Planets form inside disks of gas and dust around young stars, and leftover belts of debris persist long after planets appear, like the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. Radio and millimeter telescopes can see the cold dust and gas in these disks.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
protoplanetary disks
debris disks
planet formation
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Improve methods for analyzing centimeter-wavelength (microwave) continuum emission from protoplanetary disks, focusing on VLA observations.
- Combine resolved multi-frequency VLA images with ALMA millimeter data to measure radial profiles of dust density, temperature and particle sizes in planet-forming disks.
- Survey centimeter-band emission from a large disk sample to build a census of luminosities and spectral indices, separating dust from radio contamination, as benchmarks for dust evolution models.
- Measure the vertical thickness of gas and dust in debris disks with high-resolution ALMA imaging as part of the ARKS exo-Kuiper belt survey.
- Compare gas spectral lines, multiple millimeter wavelengths and scattered-light data to constrain the composition of gas in debris disks.
More about the research
These observations reveal how solid material grows into planets and how planetary systems change over time. This research uses radio observations to study both young, planet-forming (protoplanetary) disks and older debris disks.
Why it matters
This is basic astronomy. It adds measurements of how dust grows and moves during planet formation, and how gas and dust are arranged in mature planetary systems. Over time, it could inform how common Neptune-like planets are, how they migrate, and what exoplanet atmospheres are made of.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jonathan Williams
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure carbon monoxide in the inner, terrestrial planet-forming region of young disks (within about 5 au) using infrared spectroscopy from the Keck Observatory and NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility.
Adam Ginsburg
University of Florida, FL·Astronomy & Astrophysics·Early-career
Measure how fast and how much gas flows from parsec-scale clouds into ~1000 AU cores across 259 star-forming clumps in the ALMA Panta Rei survey, using dense-gas and infall/outflow molecular tracers.
Karin Oberg
Harvard University, MA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure UV- and electron-induced photodissociation cross sections and breakdown products for 15 organic molecules embedded in interstellar ice analogs, using ultra-high vacuum experiments monitored by FTIR spectroscopy.
The school
Wesleyan University: 2 labs on PI Pages, $11M a year on research, 6 research doctorates a year.
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