UFOS Project

The project

The UFOS project is an astrophysical research project funded by the European research council.

UFOS stands for Unveiling planet Formation by Observations and Simulations. The aim of the project is to study planet formation by combining state-of-the-art numerical simulations and high-resolution, multi-wavelength observations.

Recent News

Planet formation and migration at the inner dust rim in protoplanetary disks.

MPIA Research highlight

Press comments

CNN

"Solar systems have a 'baby-proof' system that protects newborn planets"

Inverse

"Baby planets get a little kick to keep them safe from their parent star"

Upcoming talks

Exoplanets III, Online-Conference, 27. - 31.7.2026

IMPRS 2020 summer school on planet formation in protoplanetary disks, 31.8 - 4.9.2025

Team

Mario Flock

Group leader

Expertise:

Fluid Dynamics

Magneto-hydrodynamic

Finite Volume Methods

3D global simulations

Radiation transfer

HPC computing

Gesa H.-M. Bertrang

Postdoc

Expertise:

Polarized gas & dust radiation

Observations (optical - mm)

Simulations (rad. transfer, line pol)

Lizxandra Flores

PhD candidate

Expertise:

Radiative transfer simulations Astrochemistry

Planet formation

Marcelo Barraza

PhD candidate

Expertise:

planet-disc interactions

Planet formation

simulations (hydro, rad. transfer)

Longterm Visitors

Takahiro Ueda

Postdoc

longterm visitor (summer 2018)

Expertise:

Planet formation

Dust growth

Radiative transfer simulations

Selected publications

3D non-ideal MHD simulations

Flock et al. 2015, A&A
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Polarisation of magnetically aligned dust grains

Synthetic polarized intensity map of a global MHD simulation

Bertrang et al. 2017

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Inner rim structure of protoplanetary disks

Ueda et al. 2017, ApJ
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Dust Pileup at the Dead-zone Inner Edge and Implications for the Disk Shadow

Ueda et al. 2019
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Intrinsic polarization of elongated porous dust grains

Kirchschlager et al. 2019
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Observable scattered light features from inclined and non-inclined planets embedded in protoplanetary discs

Kloster & Flock 2019
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A Particle Module for the PLUTO Code: Dust

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Planet formation and migration near the silicate sublimation front in protoplanetary disks

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Self-scattering of non-spherical dust grains

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Gas and dust dynamics in starlight-heated protoplanetary disks

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This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 757957).

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