Related papers: Long period planets from dynamical relaxation
Earth-sized planets were observed in close-in orbits around M dwarfs. While more and more planets are expected to be uncovered around M dwarfs, theories of their formation and dynamical evolution are still in their infancy. We investigate…
The solar system's dynamical state can be explained by an orbital instability among the giant planets. A recent model has proposed that the giant planet instability happened during terrestrial planet formation. This scenario has been shown…
During the late stage of planet formation when Mars-size cores appear, interactions among planetary cores can excite their orbital eccentricities, speed their merges and thus sculpture the final architecture of planet systems. This series…
We develop a simple model of planetary formation, focusing our attention on those planets with masses less than 10 Earth masses and studying particularly the primordial spin parameters of planets resulting from the accretion of…
The occurrence rate of young giant planets from direct imaging surveys is a fundamental tracer of the efficiency with which planets form and migrate at wide orbital distances. These measurements have progressively converged to a value of…
Orbital evolution is a critical process that sculpts planetary systems, particularly during their early stages where planet-disk interactions are expected to lead to the formation of resonant chains. Despite the theoretically expected…
Planet-planet scattering is the leading mechanism to explain the broad eccentricity distribution of observed giant exoplanets. Here we study the orbital stability of primordial giant planet moons in this scenario. We use N-body simulations…
In the solar neighborhood, where the typical relaxation timescale is larger than the cosmic age, at least 10\% to 15\% of Sun-like stars have planetary systems with Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, dense star clusters, charactered by…
Recent observations of exoplanets by direct imaging, reveal that giant planets orbit at a few dozens to more than a hundred of AU from their central star. The question of the origin of these planets challenges the standard theories of…
The questions of how planets form and how common Earth-like planets are can be addressed by measuring the distribution of exoplanet masses and orbital periods. We report the occurrence rate of close-in planets (with orbital periods less…
X-rays and extreme ultraviolet radiation impacting on a gas produce a variety of effects that, depending on the electron content, may provide a significant heating of the illuminated region. In a planetary atmosphere of solar composition,…
We study the orbital architecture of multi-planet systems detected by the Kepler transit mission using N-body simulations, focusing on the orbital spacing between adjacent planets in systems showing four or more transiting planets. We find…
Wide-orbit exoplanets are starting to be detected, and planetary formation models are under development to understand their properties. We propose a population of "Oort" planets around other stars, forming by a mechanism analogous to how…
Transitional disks are protoplanetary disks with large and deep central holes in the gas, possibly carved by young planets. Dong, R., & Dawson, R. 2016, ApJ, 825, 7 simulated systems with multiple giant planets that were capable of carving…
A new suite of three dimensional radiative, gravitational hydrodynamical models is used to show that gas giant planets are unlikely to form by the disk instability mechanism at distances of ~100 AU to ~200 AU from young stars. A similar…
Many of the multi-planet systems discovered to date have been notable for their compactness, with neighbouring planets closer together than any in the Solar System. Interestingly, planet-hosting stars have a wide range of ages, suggesting…
We have simulated encounters between planetary systems and single stars in various clustered environments. This allows us to estimate the fraction of systems liberated, the velocity distribution of the liberated planets, and the separation…
The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about…
Microlensing surveys suggest the presence of a surprisingly large population of free-floating planets, with a rate of about two Neptunes per star. The origin of such objects is not known, neither do we know if they are truly unbound or are…
Planetary systems with more than two bodies will experience orbital crossings at a time related to the initial orbital separations of the planets. After a crossing, the system enters a period of chaotic evolution ending in the reshaping of…