Related papers: Coreless Terrestrial Exoplanets
A terrestrial planet is molten during formation and may remain so if subject to intense insolation or tidal forces. Observations continue to favour the detection and characterisation of hot planets, potentially with large outgassed…
Circumbinary gas disks are often observed to be misaligned to the binary orbit suggesting that planet formation may proceed in a misaligned disk. With N-body simulations we consider the formation of circumbinary terrestrial planets from a…
Prior studies have hypothesized that some polluted white dwarfs record continent-like granitic crust--which is abundant on Earth and perhaps uniquely indicative of plate tectonics. But these inferences derive from only a few elements, none…
A large population of planetary candidates in short-period orbits have been found through transit searches. Radial velocity surveys have also revealed several Jupiter-mass planets with highly eccentric orbits. Measurements of the…
Pebble accretion is the leading theory for the formation of exoplanets more massive than the Earth. Many parameters influence planet growth in the pebble accretion models. In this paper, we study the influence of pebble fragmentation…
Despite the fact that the terrestrial planets formed from the protoplanetary disk, their compositions show marked departures from that of solar nebula condensates. Metallic cores fix oxygen fugacities ($f$O$_2$s) of the planets to 5…
Whether the higher occurrence of giant planets being hosted by metal-rich versus metal-poor stars results from formation or from "pollution" has been a question of intense debate. We present new patterns that emerge when planet/star systems…
With the progress of detection techniques, the number of low-mass and small-size exoplanets is increasing rapidly. However their characteristics and formation mechanisms are not yet fully understood. The metallicity of the host star is a…
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…
This chapter begins with some basic concepts regarding the structure and mineralogy of rocky planets, how to read and construct ternary diagrams, and why partial melting occurs when plate tectonics is operative. Partial melting is a key…
We present models for the formation of terrestrial planets, and the collisional evolution of debris disks, in planetary systems that contain multiple unstable gas giants. We previously showed that the dynamics of the giant planets…
Super-Earths are highly irradiated, small planets with bulk densities approximately consistent with Earth. We construct combined interior-atmosphere models of super-Earths that trace the partitioning of water throughout a planet, including…
Many extrasolar (bound) terrestrial planets and free-floating (unbound) planets have been discovered. The existence of bound and unbound terrestrial planets with liquid water is an important question, and of particular importance is the…
We present preliminary results from our spectroscopic search for planets within 1 AU of metal-poor field dwarfs using NASA time with HIRES on Keck I. The core accretion model of gas giant planet formation is sensitive to the metallicity of…
The exoplanet mass radius diagram reveals that super Earths display a wide range of radii, and therefore mean densities, at a given mass. Using planet population synthesis models, we explore the key physical factors that shape this…
Because of their common origin, it was assumed that the composition of planet building blocks should, to a first order, correlate with stellar atmospheric composition, especially for refractory elements. In fact, information on the relative…
Substantial orbital migration of massive planets may occur in most extrasolar planetary systems. Since migration is likely to occur after a significant fraction of the dust has been locked up into planetesimals, ubiquitous migration could…
In the core accretion hypothesis, giant planets form by gas accretion onto solid protoplanetary cores. The minimum (or critical) core mass to form a gas giant is typically quoted as 10 Earth masses. The actual value depends on several…
The two current models for giant planet formation are core accretion and disk instability. We discuss the core masses and overall planetary enrichment in heavy elements predicted by the two formation models, and show that both models could…
Planet formation encompasses processes that span a remarkable 40 magnitudes in mass, ranging from collisions between micron-sized grains inherited from the ISM to the accretion of gas by giant planets. The planet formation process takes…