I am Jamie, a third-year PhD student in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick, supervised by Boris Gänsicke. My work is focused on polluted white dwarfs, and what they can tell us about the bulk composition of exoplanets.

Research

I have created and will maintain the Planetary Enriched White Dwarf Database (PEWDD), containing information on ~1700 white dwarf planetary systems. With this database, I have been investigating the trends of these systems and what they can tell us about planets, as well as identifying observational biases. This database can be accessed here: https://github.com/jamietwilliams/PEWDD

By fitting atmosphere models to ultraviolet and optical spectra, I am determining the number abundances of DAZ white dwarfs using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and will interpret these abundances to find what they can tell us about the nature of the accreted material.

Papers

PEWDD: A database of white dwarfs enriched by exo-planetary material: J. T. Williams, B. T. Gänsicke, A. Swan, M. W. O'Brien, P. Izquierdo, A.-M. Cutolo & T. Cunningham

Accepted Proposals

A legacy survey for evolved planetary systems within 100pc (HST Cycle 31) - Co-I

A legacy survey for evolved planetary systems within 100pc (HST Cycle 32) - Co-I

Examining the metal diverse interior composition of thick disk and halo planets using polluted white dwarfs (HST Cycle 32) - PI

Conferences

Towards Other Earths III, July 2023 - Porto, Portugal: "Inferring planet compositions from polluted white dwarfs" (Poster)

UKEXOM 2023, August 2023 - London, United Kingdom: "Inferring planet compositions from polluted white dwarfs" (Poster)

Rocky Worlds III, January 2024 - Zürich, Switzerland: "Inferring exoplanet compositions using a polluted white dwarf database" (Talk)

Extreme Solar Systems V, March 2024 - Christchurch, New Zealand: "Dissecting the atmosphere of a giant planet orbiting a white dwarf" (Poster)

UKEXOM 2024, April 2024 - Birmingham, United Kingdom: "Planet detections around white dwarfs" (Talk)

RAS UV workshop, April 2024 - Edinburgh, United Kingdom: "Using ultraviolet spectroscopy of planetary enriched white dwarfs to infer the composition of exoplanets" (Talk)

EuroWD 2024, July 2024 - Barcelona, Spain: "Interpreting the nature of material accreted by four DAZ white dwarfs using the Planetary Enriched White Dwarf Database" (Talk)

EDI & Teaching

• Demonstrator for first year undergraduate Physics Laboratory (PX152-30 Physics Laboratory)Link opens in a new window.
• Contributed a talk for the Warwick Equitea Group: "The Impact of Having a Stutter in Academia".
• Previous Warwick white dwarf meeting organiser (2023, Warwick white dwarf group).