- Fellowship in 2023 at Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies (HITS)
About Mike Lau’s work
Mike Lau is an astrophysicist at the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies. He studies the interactions between stars that are orbiting each other in a binary system using computational models. Dr Lau’s current research focuses on 3D hydrodynamical modelling of common-envelope evolution, a type of interaction that is believed to allow binary stars to form X-ray binaries, gravitational wave sources, and more.
Biography
Dr Lau read Physics at The University of Oxford as a Hong Kong Scholar and graduated with a Master of Mathematical and Theoretical Physics degree in 2019. In 2023, he received his PhD at Monash University, where he performed hydrodynamical simulations of common-envelope evolution in massive binary stars. In the same year, Dr Lau joined the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies as a Croucher Research Fellow to continue his research in common-envelope evolution, amongst other processes in stellar astrophysics.