Akke Corporaal

Hello everyone. My name is Akke. I am a second year PhD student at KU Leuven, Belgium. My research is based on understanding the inner regions of discs formed around post-AGB binary stars. These circumbinary discs, formed around evolved stellar systems, show many similarties with discs around young stellar objects. Understanding these discs is important in order to understand the late stages of evolution of binary stars. Currently I am combining data of the three current instruments on the VLTI (PIONIER, GRAVITY, and MATISSE) to study different regions of the disc at the same time for one system: IRAS 08544-4431. At this point, I have done the flux geometry and I am now using radiative transfer in 3D to model the interferometric observables such that the physics can be constrained.

Looking forward to meeting all of you!