Related papers: Cryptoplanet update
Earth-sized planets were observed in close-in orbits around M dwarfs. While more and more planets are expected to be uncovered around M dwarfs, theories of their formation and dynamical evolution are still in their infancy. We investigate…
Extrasolar planetary systems range from hot Jupiters out to icy comet belts more distant than Pluto. We explain this diversity in a model where the mass of solids in the primordial circumstellar disk dictates the outcome. The star retains…
Most stars, perhaps even all stars, form in crowded stellar environments. Such star forming regions typically dissolve within ten million years, while others remain bound as stellar groupings for hundreds of millions to billions of years,…
Suggestions have been made that asteroid belts may be important both for the existence of life and perhaps even for the evolution of complex life on a planet. Using numerical models for protoplanetary discs we calculate the location of the…
While it is widely accepted that planets are formed in protoplanetary disks, there is still much debate on when this process happens. In a few cases protoplanets have been directly imaged, but for the vast majority of systems, disk gaps and…
The apparent dependence of detection frequency of extrasolar planets on the metallicity of their host stars is investigated with Monte Carlo simulations using a deterministic core-accretion planet formation model. According to this model,…
To date, several exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars with close binary companions (a~<30 AU). The fact that planets can form in these dynamically challenging environments implies that planet formation must be a robust process.…
Giant planets are tens to thousands of times as massive as the Earth, and many times as large. Most of their volumes are occupied by hydrogen and helium, the primary constituents of the protostellar disks from which they formed.…
The formation of giant planets requires accumulation of ~10 Earth mass in solids; but how do protoplanets acquire their mass? There are many, often competing processes that regulate the accretion rate of protoplanets. To assess their…
Theories of planet formation predict the birth of giant planets in the inner, dense, and gas-rich regions of the circumstellar disks around young stars. These are the regions from which strong CO emission is expected. Observations have so…
Recent discoveries of strongly misaligned transiting exoplanets pose a challenge to the established planet formation theory which assumes planetary systems to form and evolve in isolation. However, the fact that the majority of stars…
According to the sequential accretion model, giant planet formation is based first on the formation of a solid core which, when massive enough, can gravitationally bind gas from the nebula to form the envelope. In order to trigger the…
Planetesimals form in gas-rich protoplanetary disks around young stars. However, protoplanetary disks fade in about 10 Myr. The planetesimals (and also many of the planets) left behind are too dim to study directly. Fortunately, collisions…
The bulk composition of an exoplanet is commonly inferred from its average density. For small planets, however, the average density is not unique within the range of compositions. Variations of a number of important planetary…
Doppler surveys have shown that more massive stars have significantly higher frequencies of giant planets inside $\sim$ 3 AU than lower mass stars, consistent with giant planet formation by core accretion. Direct imaging searches have begun…
Planets form in protoplanetary discs. Their masses, distribution, and orbits sensitively depend on the structure of the protoplanetary discs. However, what sets the initial structure of the discs in terms of mass, radius and accretion rate…
This paper provides a brief summary and overview of the astrochemistry associated with the formation of stars and planets. It is aimed at new researchers in the field to enable them to obtain a quick overview of the landscape and key…
We study the evolution of cold, gravitationally unstable protoplanetary gaseous disks performing 3D SPH simulations with up to a million particles on large parallel machines. We show that self-gravitating protoplanets can form in disks with…
Planet formation is generally described in terms of a system containing the host star and a protoplanetary disc, of which the internal properties (e.g. mass and metallicity) determine the properties of the resulting planetary system.…
Core Accretion, the most widely accepted scenario for planet formation, postulates existence of km-sized solid bodies, called planetesimals, arranged in a razor-thin disc in the earliest phases of planet formation. In the Tidal Downsizing…