I am proud and pleased to report the award of Hauke Wörpel's PhD degree was approved last week. Hauke's thesis, entitled "Radiation drag on the accretion disk in type-I X-ray bursts" was submitted last October. His thesis involved analysis of a few thousand thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts observed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, showing that the accretion rate seems to increase during the bursts, and by a substantial amount, up to a factor of 20. Hauke also undertook numerical SPH modelling of accretion disks under the influence of bursts, with a view to better understanding the dynamics of the disk. Hauke has already left these shores and is now undertaking postdoctoral work at the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, where, on arrival, he unexpectedly grew an umlaut. Congratulations Hauke!

Labels: 2015, /postgrads