Institute for Advanced Study Informal Astrophysics Seminar

Thin fluid disks, found in a variety of astrophysical environments, can in general become eccentric, often as a result of interactions with orbital companions. I will discuss the dynamics of eccentric disks, focusing on their occurrence in two different settings: stellar binaries, in which the configurations of eccentric circumstellar/circumbinary disks play key roles in the formation of S-type/P-type planets, and debris disks around white dwarfs, in which the precession of eccentric patterns may be responsible for observed variabilities of metallic emission line profiles on timescales of years to decades. I will present recent results and ongoing work on eccentricity excitation, coherent precession, and apsidal alignment in these systems, using methods which confront the linear theory of eccentric disks with nonlinear hydrodynamics simulations.