Jan Čechura
email:
phone: +420 226 258 422
Jan Čechura works as a post-doctoral researcher at Prague site of the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences. He received his PhD from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the Charles University in 2014.
His research interests focus on the study of interacting binary stars and the X-ray binaries in particular. He uses radiation-hydrodynamic modeling to probe the circumstellar environment and the mass transfer process between the components of the binaries. Depending on specific conditions, the mass-flow can take a form of the Roche lobe overflow or it is a result of an intense stellar wind originating from the donor star. The chief goal is to comprehend the accretion process in a wide range of conditions through understanding the physics governing the structure and the dynamics of the mass-flows onto the compact stars. The accretion process can be found in various forms in a wide range of environments, and it allows us to study the late stages of stellar evolution - the compact stellar remnants such as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes.
Besides the hydrodynamic modeling, he also takes an interest in indirect imaging techniques (e.g. Doppler tomography) which allow to distinguish the interacting binaries on a micro-arcsecond scale - far below the resolving power of present-day observation instruments. Some other areas of interest involve relativistic astrophysics, radiative transfer, stellar atmospheres, and spectroscopic observations of X-ray binaries.