Related papers: Defining planets by a generating function
All the four giant planets in our Solar System have rings, but their characteristics are very different. The rings consist of a number of small particles, although individual particles have not been directly imaged. Near the central planet,…
Detections of planets in eccentric, close (separations of ~20 AU) binary systems such as \alpha Cen or \gamma Cep provide an important test of planet formation theories. Gravitational perturbations from the companion are expected to excite…
Thousands of extrasolar planets have been discovered, and it is clear that the galactic planetary census draws on a diversity greatly exceeding that exhibited by the solar system's planets. We review significant landmarks in the chronology…
In this article, I examine several observational trends regarding protoplanetary disks, debris disks and exoplanets in binary systems in an attempt to constrain the physical mechanisms of planet formation in such a context. Binaries wider…
Terrestrial exoplanets are on the verge of joining the ranks of astronomically accessible objects. Interpreting their observable characteristics, and informing decisions on instrument design and use, will hinge on the ability to model these…
We seek to characterize giant-planet systems by their gravitational scattering properties. We do this to a given system by integrating it numerically along with a large number of hypothetical small bodies that are initially in eccentric…
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets has shown that the birth of planets is a very efficient process in nature. Several physical mechanisms have been proposed to describe the assembly of planets in disks surrounding young stars.…
The relationship between stars and planets provides important information for understanding the interior composition, mineralogy, and overall classification of small planets (R $\lesssim$ 3.5R$_{\oplus}$). Since stars and planets are formed…
One well-tested method in science is to separate the object of interest from its surroundings and look at it in isolation. The advantage is that unimportant information is removed and the true properties of the object are seen more clearly.…
With the high number of extrasolar planets discovered by now, it becomes possible to constrain theoretical formation models in a statistical sense. This paper is the first in a series in which we carry out a large number of planet…
Despite the increase in observational data on exoplanets, the processes that lead to the formation of planets are still not well understood. But thanks to the high number of known exoplanets, it is now possible to look at them as a…
We use a semi-analytic circumstellar disk model that considers movement of the snow line through evolution of accretion and the central star to investigate how gas giant frequency changes with stellar mass. The snow line distance changes…
The physical principles governing the planetary atmospheres are briefly introduced in the first part of this chapter, moving from the examples of Solar System bodies. Namely, the concepts of collisional regime, balance equations,…
We use the model for the migration of planets introduced in Del Popolo, Yesilyurt & Ercan (2003) to calculate the observed mass and semimajor axis distribution of extra-solar planets. The assumption that the surface density in planetesimals…
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…
Seismology applied to giant planets could drastically change our understanding of their deep interiors, as it has happened with the Earth, the Sun, and many main-sequence and evolved stars. The study of giant planets' composition is…
We devise and exploit a data-driven, semi-empirical framework of galaxy formation and evolution, coupling it to recipes for planet formation from stellar and planetary science, to compute the cosmic planet formation rate, and the properties…
I discuss the role that disc fragmentation plays in the formation of gas giant and terrestrial planets, and how this relates to the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars, and ultimately to the process of star formation. Protostellar…
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…
A stochastic model relating the parameters of astrophysical structures to the parameters of their granular components is applied to the formation of hierarchical, large-scale structures from galaxies assumed as point-like objects. If the…