Related papers: Planet Migration through a Self-Gravitating Planet…
We present N-body simulations of planetary accretion beginning with 1 km radius planetesimals in orbit about a 1 solar mass star at 0.4 AU. The initial disk of planetesimals contains too many bodies for any current N-body code to integrate;…
The gravitational interaction between a protoplanetary disc and planetary sized bodies that form within it leads to the exchange of angular momentum, resulting in migration of the planets and possible gap formation in the disc for more…
The torques exerted by a locally isothermal disk on an embedded planet lead to rapid inward migration. Recent work has shown that modeling the thermodynamics without the assumption of local isothermality reveals regions where the net torque…
Many extra-solar planets discovered over the past decade are gas giants in tight orbits around their host stars. Due to the difficulties of forming these `hot Jupiters' in situ, they are generally assumed to have migrated to their present…
We investigate the process of an inhomogeneous planetesimal disk evolution caused by the planetesimal-planetesimal gravitational scattering. We develop a rather general approach based on the kinetic theory which self-consistently describes…
We investigate the formation of planetesimals via the gravitational instability of solids that have settled to the midplane of a circumstellar disk. Vertical shear between the gas and a subdisk of solids induces turbulent mixing which…
Outward migration of low-mass planets has recently been shown to be a possibility in non-barotropic disks. We examine the consequences of this result in evolutionary models of protoplanetary disks. Planet migration occurs towards…
The process of planet conglomeration, which primarily unfolds in a geometrically thin disk of gas and dust, is often accompanied by dynamical excitation of the forming planets and planetesimals. The ensuing orbital crossing can lead to…
We investigate the orbital evolution of planetesimals in a self-gravitating circumstellar disc in the size regime ($\sim 1-5000$ km) where the planetesimals behave approximately as test particles in the disc's non-axisymmetric potential. We…
Observations of extrasolar planets reveal that planets can be found in close binary systems, where the semi-major axis of the binary orbit is less than 20 AU. The existence of these planets challenges planet formation theory, because the…
Formation models in which terrestrial bodies grow via the pairwise accretion of planetesimals have been reasonably successful at reproducing the general properties of the solar system, including small body populations. However, planetesimal…
During planet formation gravitational interaction between a planetary embryo and the protoplanetary gas disc causes orbital migration of the planetary embryo, which plays an important role in shaping the final planetary system. While…
While many observed debris disks are thought to have gaps suggestive of the presence of planets, direct imaging surveys do not find many high mass planets in these systems. We investigate if divergent migration is a viable mechanism for…
Radial drift of solid particles in the protoplanetary disk is often invoked as a threat to planet formation, as it removes solid material from the disk before it can be assembled into planets. However, it may also concentrate solids at…
As planets form and grow within gaseous protoplanetary disks, the mutual gravitational interaction between the disk and planet leads to the exchange of angular momentum, and migration of the planet. We review current understanding of…
Disc-driven planet migration is integral to the formation of planetary systems. In standard, gas-dominated protoplanetary discs, low-mass planets or planetary cores undergo rapid inwards migration and are lost to the central star. However,…
We investigate how planets interact with viscous accretion disks, in the limit that the disk is sufficiently low mass that the planet migrates more slowly than the disk material. In that case, the disk's surface density profile is…
We study particle dynamics in local two-dimensional simulations of self-gravitating accretion discs with a simple cooling law. It is well known that the structure which arises in the gaseous component of the disc due to a gravitational…
We explore the dynamics of small planetesimals coexisting with massive protoplanetary cores in a gaseous nebula. Gas drag strongly affects the motion of small bodies leading to the decay of their eccentricities and inclinations, which are…
Modern studies of the early solar system routinely invoke the possibility of an orbital instability among the giant planets triggered by gravitational interactions between the planets and a massive exterior disk of planetesimals. Previous…