Jonathan Williams
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Planets form inside disks of gas and dust that swirl around newborn stars. To understand how planets get their ingredients, astronomers need to track where volatile molecules, substances that easily switch between ice and gas, travel within these disks.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
Chemistry
- Topics
planet formation
protoplanetary disks
planet-forming disks
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- 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.
- Map carbon monoxide in the outer disk gas reservoir with millimeter-wavelength images from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).
- Search for patterns linking carbon monoxide column densities in the inner and outer disk, to test how drifting icy solids and chemical processing reshape a disk's volatile content.
More about the research
This collaborative project follows carbon monoxide (CO). CO may freeze onto dust grains and pebble-sized solids far from the star, drift inward with them, and then be released as gas when the star's heat warms them. Recent observations and simulations suggest that the movement of material and chemical processing within the disk are changing the CO chemistry.
Why it matters
This is basic research into how planets get their raw materials. By linking the carbon monoxide in the outer reservoir of planet-forming disks to the gas in the region where Earth-like planets form, the work could clarify how volatile ingredients are delivered to young planets. Its public datasets and open-source code could support other astronomers studying planet formation.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Alanna Hughes
Wesleyan University, CT·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Improve methods for analyzing centimeter-wavelength (microwave) continuum emission from protoplanetary disks, focusing on VLA observations.
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
University of Hawaii at Manoa: 23 labs on PI Pages, $376M a year on research, 182 research doctorates a year.
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