Related papers: Dynamics of small bodies in planetary systems
We still do not understand how planets form, or why extra-solar planetary systems are so different from our own solar system. But the last few years have dramatically changed our view of the discs of gas and dust around young stars.…
Planet formation models rely on knowledge of the physical conditions and evolutionary processes in protoplanetary disks, in particular the grain size distribution and dust growth timescales. In theoretical models, several barriers exist…
Circumstellar dust disks have been observed around many nearby stars. However, many stars are part of binary or multiple stellar systems. A natural question arises regarding the presence and properties of such disks in systems with more…
Most stars form as part of a stellar group. These young stars are mostly surrounded by a disk from which potentially a planetary system might form. Both, the disk and later on the planetary system, may be affected by the cluster environment…
The scattering of small bodies by planets is an important dynamical process in planetary systems. We present an analytical model to describe this process using the simplifying assumption that each particle's dynamics is dominated by a…
Excess emission, associated with warm, dust belts, commonly known as exozodis, has been observed around a third of nearby stars. The high levels of dust required to explain the observations are not generally consistent with steady-state…
The gap between two component debris disks is often taken to be carved by intervening planets scattering away the remnant planetesimals. We employ N-body simulations to determine how the time needed to clear the gap depends on the location…
The interstellar thick disks of galaxies contain not only gas, but significant quantities of dust. Most of our knowledge of extraplanar dust in disk galaxies comes from direct broadband optical imaging of these systems, wherein the dust is…
Observations of debris disks, the products of the collisional evolution of rocky planetesimals, can be used to trace planetary activity across a wide range of stellar types. The most common end points of stellar evolution are no exception…
We discuss the current knowledge of the Solar system, focusing on bodies in the outer regions, on the information they provide concerning Solar system formation, and on the possible relationships that may exist between our system and the…
Giant impacts refer to collisions between two objects each of which is massive enough to be considered at least a planetary embryo. The putative collision suffered by the proto-Earth that created the Moon is a prime example, though most…
The dust produced in the Kuiper Belt (KB) spreads throughout the Solar System forming a dust disk. We numerically model the orbital evolution of KB dust and estimate its equilibrium spatial distribution and its brightness and spectral…
Many stars are in binaries or higher-order multiple stellar systems. Although in recent years a large number of binaries have been proven to host exoplanets, how planet formation proceeds in multiple stellar systems has not been studied…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
The vertical distribution of dust in debris disks is sensitive to the number and size of large planetesimals dynamically stirring the disk, and is therefore well-suited for constraining the prevalence of otherwise unobservable Uranus and…
We discuss the properties of several circumstellar debris disk systems imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer in a survey of young stars with known far-IR excesses. These dusty disks…
The vertical thickness of debris discs is often used as a measure of these systems' dynamical excitation and as clues to the presence of hidden massive perturbers such as planetary embryos. However, this argument could be flawed because the…
Context. Circumstellar disks are known to contain a significant mass in dust ranging from micron to centimeter size. Meteorites are evidence that individual grains of those sizes were collected and assembled into planetesimals in the young…
We present the discovery of debris systems around three solar mass stars based upon observations performed with the Spitzer Space Telescope as part of a Legacy Science Program, ``the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems'' (FEPS). We…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…