Amelia J. Cordwell
I am an an astrophysics PhD student in the Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics group at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. My supervisor is Roman R. Rafikov, and I can be contacted at ajc356@cam.ac.uk. I presently looking for postdoctoral positions to start in October 2026.
I research protoplanetary discs with a focus on planet-disc interactions, and using simulations to verify and develop (semi-)analytical theory.
My full CV is available here, and my full list of publications is on Google Scholar.
PhD Research Overview
The first paper of my PhD, Early stages of gap opening by planets in protoplanetary discs (Cordwell & Rafikov, 2024), is available as a preprint on ArXiv and has been published by MNRAS. At present I have two papers in prep about the 3D structure of planet-disc interactions, and the impacts of viscosity and cooling on angular momentum deposition.
Surface density perturbation for a disc with a $ M_p/M_{th} = 0.25$ planet, $h_p = 0.1$ scale height at the planet and $\Sigma_0 = (R/R_p)^{-1.5} $ background surface density (2D simulation).
3D structure of the excited planetary wake from a simulation with a $ M_p/M_{th} = 0.25$ planet, $h_p = 0.05$ scale height at the planet and $\Sigma_0 = (R/R_p)^{-1.5} $ background surface density
Scientific Codes on GitHub (All free and open source)
disc_planet_analysis: A python module for analysing the output of 2D and 3D planet-disc interaction simulations. This can currently automatically open 2D/3D Athena++ and PLUTO simulations. Outputs include total torque, expected gap evolution, angular momentum deposition, expected gap evolution (using the theory of Cordwell and Rafikov, 2024), horseshoe widths, vortensity and more.
Athena++ with Planet-Disc interactions (WORK IN PROGRESS): A fork of Athena++ with problem files for planet-disc interactions, example athinput files as used in Cordwell, Ziampras, Brown and Rafikov (2025, in prep) and complimation commands for the University of Cambridge HPC systems.
Vortensity Driven Evolution of Protoplanetary Discs: This is an implementation of the semi-analytical angular momentum deposition model from Cimerman and Rafikov (2021) and its related surface density reconstruction algorithm from Cimerman and Rafikov (2023). It models the initial evolution of a disc with an injected sub-thermal mass protoplanet. The vortensity solver can solve for surface densities with an arbitary perscribed vortensity in a barotropic disc. It also includes implementations of the surface density evolution solutions from Cordwell and Rafikov (2024).
Cambridge Astrophysical Discs Early Career Researcher Meetups
I sometimes try to organise meetups for all of the astrophysical disc researchers in Cambridge.
If you are currently in Cambridge, and logged into your .cam.ac.uk Google account you will be able to access some related resources and a researcher directory here.