Related papers: Terrestrial Planet Formation in Extra-Solar Planet…
We use a hybrid, multiannulus, n-body-coagulation code to investigate the growth of km-sized planetesimals at 0.4-2 AU around a solar-type star. After a short runaway growth phase, protoplanets with masses of roughly 10^26 g and larger form…
The terrestrial planets formed by accretion of asteroid-like objects within the inner solar system's protoplanetary disk. Previous works have found that forming a small-mass Mars requires the disk to contain little mass beyond ~1.5 au…
An unsolved issue in the standard core accretion model for gaseous planet formation is how kilometre-sized planetesimals form from, initially, micron-sized dust grains. Solid growth beyond metre sizes can be difficult both because the…
The process leading to the formation of the terrestrial planet remains elusive. In a previous publication, we have shown that, if the first generation of planetesimals forms in a ring at about 1 AU and the gas disk's density peaks at the…
This work describes new dynamical simulations of terrestrial planet formation. The simulations started at the protoplanetary disk stage, when planetesimals formed and accreted into protoplanets, and continued past the late stage of giant…
A binary star system is the most common result of the star formation process, and binary companions can disrupt both the formation of terrestrial planets and their long term prospects for stability. We present results from a large set of…
Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…
Terrestrial planets are thought to be the result of a vast number of gravitational interactions and collisions between smaller bodies. We use numerical simulations to show that practically identical initial conditions result in a wide array…
In models of planetary accretion, pebbles form by dust coagulation and rapidly migrate toward the central star. Planetesimals may continuously form from pebbles over the age of the protoplanetary disk by yet uncertain mechanisms. Meanwhile,…
Disk material has been observed around both components of some young close binary star systems. It has been shown that if planets form at the right places within such disks, they can remain dynamically stable for very long times. Herein, we…
Recent results have shown that many of the known extrasolar planetary systems contain regions which are stable for both Earth-mass and Saturn-mass planets. Here we simulate the formation of terrestrial planets in four planetary systems --…
The final stage in the formation of terrestrial planets consists of the accumulation of ~1000-km ``planetary embryos'' and a swarm of billions of 1-10 km ``planetesimals.'' During this process, water-rich material is accreted by the…
The final stage of terrestrial planet formation is known as the giant impact stage where protoplanets collide with one another to form planets. So far this stage has been mainly investigated by N-body simulations with an assumption of…
Super-Earths are found in tighter orbits than the Earth's around more than one third of main sequence stars. It has been proposed that super-Earths are scaled-up terrestrial planets that formed similarly, through mutual accretion of…
We review the current theoretical understanding how growth from micro-meter sized dust to massive giant planets occurs in disks around young stars. After introducing a number of observational constraints from the solar system, from observed…
Models of terrestrial planet formation for our solar system have been successful in producing planets with masses and orbits similar to those of Venus and Earth. However, these models have generally failed to produce Mars-sized objects…
Accumulation of dust and ice particles into planetesimals is an important step in the planet formation process. Planetesimals are the seeds of both terrestrial planets and the solid cores of gas and ice giants forming by core accretion.…
The growth and composition of Earth is a direct consequence of planet formation throughout the Solar System. We discuss the known history of the Solar System, the proposed stages of growth and how the early stages of planet formation may be…
The formation of planets is one of the major unsolved problems in modern astrophysics. Planets are believed to form out of the material in circumstellar disks known to exist around young stars, and which are a by-product of the star…
Giant planet embryos are believed to be spawned by gravitational instability in massive extended (R ~ 100 AU) protostellar discs. In a recent paper we have shown that dust can sediment inside the embryos, as argued earlier by Boss (1998) in…