Related papers: Assembling the Building Blocks of Giant Planets ar…
We address two outstanding issues in the sequential accretion scenario for gas giant planet formation, the retention of dust grains in the presence of gas drag and that of cores despite type I migration. The efficiency of these processes is…
Intermediate mass planets, from Super-Earth to Neptune-sized bodies, are the most common type of planets in the galaxy. The prevailing theory of planet formation, core-accretion, predicts significantly fewer intermediate-mass giant planets…
Migration of dense gaseous clumps that form in young protostellar disks via gravitational fragmentation is investigated to determine the likelihood of giant planet formation. High-resolution numerical hydrodynamics simulations in the…
Circumplanetary disks can be found around forming giant planets, regardless of whether core accretion or gravitational instability built the planet. We carried out state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations of the circumplanetary disks for…
The core-accretion mechanism for gas giant formation may be too slow to create all observed gas giant planets during reasonable gas disk lifetimes, but it has yet to be firmly established that the disk instability model can produce…
Gravitational instability has been invoked as a possible mechanism of giant planet formation in protoplanetary disks. Here we critically revise its viability by noting that for the direct production of giant planets it is not enough for…
Characterization of migration in gravitationally unstable disks is necessary to understand the fate of protoplanets formed by disk instability. As part of a larger study, we are using a 3D radiative hydrodynamics code to investigate how an…
In the standard model of gas giant planet formation, a large solid core (~ 10 times the Earth's mass) forms first, then accretes its massive envelope (100 or more Earth masses) of gas. However, inward planet migration due to gravitational…
Protoplanetary gas disks are likely to experience gravitational instabilites (GI's) during some phase of their evolution. Density perturbations in an unstable disk grow on a dynamic time scale into spiral arms that produce efficient outward…
The formation of planetary cores must proceed rapidly in order for the giant planets to accrete their gaseous envelopes before the dissipation of the protoplanetary gas disc (<3 Myr). In orbits beyond 10 AU, direct accumulation of…
Extrasolar planet surveys have begun to detect gas giant planets in orbit around M dwarf stars. While the frequency of gas giant planets around M dwarfs so far appears to be lower than that around G dwarfs, it is clearly not zero. Previous…
We investigate the occurrence of accretion bursts, dust accumulation, and the prospects for planetesimal formation in a gravitationally unstable magnetized protoplanetary disk with globally suppressed but episodically triggered…
Forming giant planets by disk instability requires a gaseous disk that is massive enough to become gravitationally unstable and able to cool fast enough for self-gravitating clumps to form and survive. Models with simplified disk cooling…
Short-period super-Earth-sized planets are common. Explaining how they form near their present orbits requires understanding the structure of the inner regions of protoplanetary discs. Previous studies have argued that the hot inner…
We use resistive magnetohydrodynamical simulations with the nested grid technique to study the formation of protoplanetary disks around protostars from molecular cloud cores that provide the realistic environments for planet formation. We…
Characterizing the atmospheric compositions of exoplanets, along with determining properties such as their mass, mean density, and orbital configuration, is thought to be an effective means for differentiating between various formation and…
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…
Observational studies show that the probability of finding gas giant planets around a star increases with the star's metallicity. Our latest simulations of disks undergoing gravitational instabilities (GIs) with realistic radiative cooling…
We describe a coagulation model that leads to the rapid formation of super-Earths and the cores of gas giant planets. Interaction of collision fragments with the gaseous disk is the crucial element of this model. The gas entrains small…
The formation of a circumplanetary disk and accretion of angular momentum onto a protoplanetary system are investigated using 3D hydrodynamical simulations. The local region around a protoplanet in a protoplanetary disk is considered with…