Rafael Martinez-Brunner
I am a PhD student in the Astronomy and Astrophysics group at the University of Warwick under the supervision of Dr Dimitri Veras and Dr Rebecca Nealon. My current research focuses on understanding how gas and dust in the disks around white dwarfs interact with each other and potentially with planetesimals to generate asymmetric intensity structures, changes in flux and accretion rate. We use the Phantom SPH code to study this major scientific question seeking a better understanding of planetary systems around white dwarfs.
Publications
First author:
High-resolution ALMA observations of V4046 Sgr: a circumbinary disc with a thin ring
Martinez-Brunner, R., Casassus, S., Pérez, S., et al. 2022, MNRAS, 510, 1248
Collaborations:
Azimuthal temperature variation in ISO-Oph 2 from multifrequency ALMA observations
Simon Casassus, Lucas Cieza, Miguel Carcamo, Alvaro Ribas, Valentin Christiaens, Abigali Rodriguez-Jimenez, Carla Arce-Tord, Trisha Bhowmik, Prachi Chavan, Camilo Gonzalez-Ruilova, and Rafael Martınez-Brunner., 2023, MNRAS, 526, 1545
Teaching and Outreach
I have participated in various outreach activities, including working on the outreach team of the National Astronomical Observatory in Cerro Calán for a year, conducting guided visits and observations and giving talks on general astronomy. I also love teaching, and I have worked several times as a teaching assistant in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in astronomy and physics.
Previous Research experience
I graduated with an MSc degree in Astronomy from the University of Chile in 2022, under the supervision of Dr Simon Casassus. My research project aimed to provide accurate 3D models that could reproduce multi-wavelength data from two remarkable protoplanetary disks, each exhibiting unique and intriguing features. Using the RADMC3D radiative transfer code, I studied in detail the circumbinary disk of V4046Sgr and the circumstellar disk around ISOOPh2 A. In both cases, we found disks with complex internal structures and a mix of different dust populations. You can read my published article on V4046Sgr in MNRAS.