Simin Tong

Continuum images of GM Aur in ALMA Bands 6 (⁠lambda = 1.3 mm, upper panels) and 4 (⁠lambda = 2.1 mm, lower panels). The left columns are for sky-plane images adopted from J. Huang et al. (2020), and the right columns are for corresponding deprojected images. Beam sizes are denoted as ellipses at the left corners in panels of the sky plane images. Resolution and sensitivity of these data are reported in the caption of Fig. 2. We remind the readers that GM Aur is shown as a representative example of multiple-ringed discs seen in multiwavelength observations, and reproducing the GM Aur disc is not the aim of this study.

Published in #MNRAS: "Turbulence and dust fragility in protoplanetary discs", Tong et al. This is Fig. 3: for the caption & to read the paper please visit academic.oup.com/mnras/articl... @royalastrosoc.bsky.social @academic.oup.com

Summer internships

The MPIA call for summer interns is now live! This is a great opportunity for bachelors & masters students from anywhere in the world to come an complete a three month, fully funded research project in beautiful Heidelberg. Check it out here: www.mpia.de/en/careers/i...

⭐️✨🔭Please help us get the message out about the 7th annual international ASPIRE program at @api.uva.nl. This summer 2026 school provides astronomy research experience for talented MSc students from countries where opportunities to move into a PhD program are limited. Applications are due 17 Dec! ⭐️✨🔭

Artist’s impression of a disc wind dispersing a planet-forming disc around a young star. Credit ESO / M. Kornmesser.

🔭🧪🎢 PhD Project focus: Understanding protoplanetary disc evolution

We're advertising this project with Prof Richard Alexander, making simulations of accretion of planet-forming discs onto their star.

For details of all our PhD projects look here: le.ac.uk/study/resear... 🔭🧪🎢

Just saw it🙈 I was away from social media for a while. But thanks for advertising our work!

Fig.3 from Tong et al. (2025), showing ALMA observations of the GM Aur protoplanetary disc at 1.3mm (Band 6) and 2.1mm (Band 4). Left panels are the sky-plane images from Huang et al. (2020); right panels show the same observations de-projected.

New paper, led by @physicsuol.bsky.social PhD student @simintong.bsky.social. Simin looked at the rings we see in planet-forming discs, and combined new models with multi-wavelength ALMA observations to understand the underlying physical properties of the dust and gas. 🔭

arxiv.org/abs/2509.24818

Or just more available time after getting rid of your PhD student 🤣

Curious what science project motivates you to learn Python 😂

I guess it is pizza with nothing 😂 all other pizza has ingredients showing below.

@simintong.bsky.social is giving a talk (remotely) on our new paper (👇🏻) at the "Pebbles in Planet Formation" conference in Tokyo this week.

[Simin's talk is on Thursday morning; for those attending online, it's overnight Wed/Thu in Europe, or Wed evening in the US.] 🔭

indico2.riken.jp/event/5012/

Recovered now. It was down a few weeks ago also, but was not during the working hours in our time zone.

🙌🏼

Compact protoplanetary discs can be produced by dead zones Radially compact protoplanetary discs (<=50 au) are ubiquitous in nearby star-forming regions. Multiple mechanisms have been invoked to interpret various compact discs. In this paper, we propose that ...

New paper, by Leicester PhD student @simintong.bsky.social. Simin presents a new set of models which show that compact protoplanetary discs are a natural consequence of so-called ``dead zones'': regions where disc turbulence is low. 🔭

arxiv.org/abs/2502.04452

[2502.04452] Simin Tong & Richard Alexander: Compact protoplanetary discs can be produced by dead zones. link