Who Am I?

I am an assistant professor in the physics department, faculty of sciences in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM) .
My research interests are planet formation, protoplanetary discs, and planetary systems. You can find out more about my research here.

FUM was also my home university, where I spent all of my education. However, during my PhD, I had the chance to spend some time abroad and it was the beginning of my seven years journey to Europe. To see how I get from home to home, you can check out my CV.

What Am I Doing?

Planets are born and grown up in dense dusty protoplanetary discs. Planetary systems are formed from those lucky planets which neither fall on their host stars, nor scatter away after the disc dispersal. In the first stage, when a dust and gas disc is present, both the planet-disc tidal interaction and planet-planet interaction are important. After the disc is dispersed thanks to the accretion and photo-evaporation, the planet-planet interaction remains as the dominant dynamical process.
Planet-disc interaction changes smoothly the planet's semi-major axis, it is called migration, and planet-planet interaction can increase the planets' eccentricity and inclination due to planet-planet encounters or capturing the planets into mean-motion resonances.
However, the long story of planet formation or planetary system formation, that takes billions of years, is not fully known and there are many missing pieces in this jigsaw puzzle that need to be found. And I am happy to have a little contribution, as you can briefly see below, in completing this puzzle.

Formation of close-in planetary systems

Distribution of discovered exoplanets shows that there is a population of super-Earths, planets with masses of about 10-20 Earth-mass, that is located very close to their host stars. Several scenarios are proposed for explaining how these planets found their way to those close-in orbits. One of them is resonant migration, in which, a chain of planets that are in mean-motion resonances push the most inner planets out of the disc inner edge towards the central star. The details of this scenario is one of my recent interests.

Pebble accretion

To form and grow the planets, three main accretion processes are suggested based on the size of the accreting particles: dust coagulation supposed to form the seeds of planets, pebbles are assumed to help planets to grow to about 20-50 Earth-masses, and planetesimal accretion can be the effective process after the pebbles have no way to reach the planet, or in other words, after the planet reaches the pebble isolation mass. This is a critical mass that can stop the flux of pebbles towards the planet's orbits by opening a partial gap, and depends on the gas disc and dust properties. How this critical mass can affect the final configuration of the planetary systems is still an active field of study.

Protoplanetary discs structure

Protoplanetary discs are the parents of the planets, and the properties of the planets and planetary systems depends on the disc properties. For example, the disc's temperature and density profiles have the main role in migration of the planets. They also determines where the ice-lines are located that consequently affect the planets composition. The planets can also affect the gas disc and dust distribution. So, the discs and planets are like a family: the discs produce the planets and then they all get interconnected. Therefore, the studies related to the disc structure in different stages of planet formation is the heart of planet formation theory. I am interested on the topics such as formation of vortices in the discs and how they affect the planet formation, the ice-line location, and how these features can be observed.

CV and publications (in pdf)

Employment

  • July 2020- present : Assistant professor, Faculty of Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.
  • Apr. 2018- June 2020 : Postdoctoral research associate, Computational Astrophysics, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
  • Dec. 2014- Dec. 2017 : Postdoctoral research associate, PlanetS project, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
  • Oct. 2013- Oct. 2014 : Postdoctoral research associate, School of Astronomy, IPM, Tehran, Iran.

Education

Publication

You can find the list of my publication here in ADS.

Selected Talks

  • 2022: Hands-on Numerical Astrophysics School for Exoplanetary Sciences, Hanau, Germany. Title: Hydrodynamic modeling of planet-disk interaction and planet migration. .
  • 2022: DRAO Seminar Series, Herzberg Astrophysics, Canada, Virtual. Title: Do discs allow the planets get close to their host stars? .
  • 2021: Weekly seminars of IASBS, Zanjan, Virtual. Title: Shepherding planets towards their parent stars .
  • 2021: Group meeting of Kees Dullemnd in ITA, Heidelberg, Virtual. Title: Migration of resonant chain close to the disc inner boundary: Comparing hydro and N-body simulations.
  • 2020: Annual Meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft 2020, Virtual, Germany. Title: Can planets be pushed into a disc inner cavity by a resonant chain? .
  • 2019: Planetary dynamics, Heidelberg, Germany. Title: How much can ignoring disc self-gravity in hydrodynamical simulations affect the resonant configuration?
  • 2019: Planet formation and evolution workshop, Rostock, Germany. Title: How much does turbulence change the pebble isolation mass for planet formation?
  • 2018: Astronomy colloquium, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. Title: Planetary growth by pebble accretion .
  • 2017: Munich Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics (MIAPP) workshop, Garching bei Münich, Germany. Title: FARGO joins Planete: a code for (semi-)simultaneous calculation of planetary growth and 2D disc hydrodynamics .
  • 2015: Seminar on Planetary Sciences, Exakte Wissenschaften, Bern University, Bern, Switzerland. Title: Can a vortex survive at the present of two planets?
  • 2014: Weekly seminar, Physics department, Sharif University, Tehran, Iran. Title: Asymmetric transitional discs: Protoplanetary discs with unusual features .
  • 2014: Weekly seminar, School of Astronomy, IPM, Tehran, Iran. Title: Planet-vortex interaction: How a vortex can shepherd a planetary embryo?
  • 2013: 17th Meeting on Research in Astronomy, Zanjan, Iran, Zanjan, Iran. Title: Asymmetric transition disks: Vorticity or eccentricity?

Teaching and Mentoring Experiences

  • 2021-present: Supervising of the master student Hadise Nbavinejad.
  • 2020-present: Co-supervising of two master students, Rahele Raha and Zahra Tabatabaee, and a PhD student, Zahra Afkanpour.
  • 2020-present: The list of my courses can be found here.
  • 2018-2020: Journal club organiser for the group Journal club on weekly base. Tübingen University, Germany.
  • 2017: Mentoring of MSc student Reyhane Nejat, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran, Topic: The planet’s eccentricity kills the vortex.
  • 2017: Mentoring of MSc student Motahare Ghaderi, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran, Topic: Can a planet affect a vortex at the outer edge of a deadzone?
  • 2009: Lecturer for Mathematical Methods for Physicists, Payamnour University, Mashhad, Iran.
  • 2009: Teaching assistant of Analytical Mechanics II, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

Lecture notes and slides (under-construction)

Miscellaneous

  • 2021: SOC chair of An online crash course on numerical astrophysics, FUM, Mashdad, Iran. You can find the material here .
  • 2020: Journal reviewer, Referee for MNRAS (x1).
  • 2019: Journal reviewer, Referee for MNRAS (x2).
  • 2018: Poster presentation, ESO workshop: Take a closer look, Garching bei Münich, Germany.
  • 2018: Journal reviewer, Referee for MNRAS (x1).
  • 2017: Poster presentation, Water workshop, Zürich, Switzerland.
  • 2016: Poster presentation, Protoplanetary discussion, Edinburgh, UK.
  • 2015: Journal reviewer, Referee for ApJ (x1).
  • 2015: Participation, ERIS 2015: Sixth European Radio Interferometry School, Garching, Germany.
  • 2015: Participation, From Protoplanetary Disks to Planet Formation, Les Diablerets, Switzerland.
  • 2012: Participation, IMPRS Summer School: Computational Astrophysics - Physical Foundations & Numerical Techniques, Heidelberg, Germany.
  • 2011: Participation, Participation, IMPRS Summer School 2011, Characterizing exoplanets-from formation to atmospheres, Heidelberg, Germany.
  • 2009: Academic Marker, Third International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Tehran, Iran.

Public and Outreach

I was grown up in a city that is located very close to the central desert of Iran, where I got enchanted by its clear and bright night sky. I was dreaming of becoming an astronomer from my childhood, and this dream motived me to study physics and continue in astrophysics.

During my education, I was doing also some activities as an amateur astronomer such as: recording the path of sunspots, hunting deep-sky objects, recording the meteor showers, etc. At the beginning of my Master, I joint one of the very first amateur astronomy groups in Mashhad, Toos Sky, where I could meet many people with similar interests and talk about night-sky in our monthly gatherings. There, with some friends, we became anti-light-pollution activists and were trying to inform people about this problem.

Although, I do not have much time these days, I try to join them or give presentations about my work from time to time.

Some of my old friends in Toos Sky, build a planetarium, named Engarium and use it as a science centre to teach astronomy to kinds, whose sky is not as starry as my childhood. I am very honoured that I am collaborating with them by giving talks and consulting for some of their courses.

Here are some of my recent presentations:

Contact Information

  • Department of Physics,
  • Faculty of Sciences,
  • Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM),
  • University Campus,
  • Azadi Square,
  • Mashhad, Iran.
  • Postal code: 91779 48974
  • sarehataiee@um.ac.ir
  • (+98)51 3880 5534