Related papers: N-body simulations of planetary accretion around M…

Ultra-short-period (USP) planets reside inside the expected truncation radius for typical T Tauri disks. As a result, their current orbital locations require an explanation beyond standard disk migration or in situ formation. Modern…

Aims. We study the formation and water delivery of planets in the habitable zone (HZ) around solar-type stars. In particular, we study different dynamical environments that are defined by the most massive body in the system. Methods. First…

M dwarfs are prime targets in the hunt for habitable worlds around other stars. This is due to their abundance as well as their small radii and low masses and temperatures, which facilitate the detection of temperate, rocky planets in orbit…

The theory of Type~I migration has been widely used in many studies. Transiting multi-planet systems offer us the opportunity to examine the consistency between observation and theory, especially for those systems harbouring planets in Mean…

The poorly-ionized interior of the protoplanetary disk is the location where dust coagulation processes may be most efficient. However even here, planetesimal formation may be limited by the loss of solid material through radial drift, and…

Planets migrate due to the recoil they experience from scattering solid (planetesimal) bodies. To first order, the torques exerted by the interior and exterior disks cancel, analogous to the cancellation of the torques from the…

Planetary embryos embedded in gaseous protoplanetary disks undergo Type I orbital migration. Migration can be inward or outward depending on the local disk properties but, in general, only planets more massive than several $M_\oplus$ can…

The detection of a dust disc around G29-38 and transits from debris orbiting WD1145+017 confirmed that the photospheric trace metals found in many white dwarfs arise from the accretion of tidally disrupted planetesimals. The composition of…

We study the migration of solid bodies in turbulent protoplanetary accretion discs by means of global MHD simulations. The bodies range in size from 5 centimetres up to 1 metre, and so include objects whose migration is expected to be the…

Close-in giant planets are thought to have formed in the cold outer regions of planetary systems and migrated inward, passing through the orbital parameter space occupied by the terrestrial planets in our own Solar System. We present…

Planets with several Earth masses and a few day orbital periods have been discovered through radial velocity and transit surveys. Regardless of their formation mechanism, a key evolution issue is the efficiency of their retention near their…

The origin of a recently discovered close-in Neptune-mass planet around GJ436 poses a challenge to the current theories of planet formation. Based on the sequential accretion hypothesis and the standard theory of gap formation and orbital…

Smaller terrestrial planets (< 0.3 Earth masses) are less likely to retain the substantial atmospheres and ongoing tectonic activity probably required to support life. A key element in determining if sufficiently massive "sustainably…

Following the assumption that the disc substructures observed in protoplanetary discs originate from the interaction between the disc and the forming planets embedded therein, we aim to test if these putative planets could represent the…

Previous work concerning planet formation around low-mass stars has often been limited to large planets and individual systems. As current surveys routinely detect planets down to terrestrial size in these systems, a more holistic approach…

NASA's Kepler mission discovered $\sim700$ planets in multi-planet systems containing 3 or more transiting bodies, many of which are super-Earths and mini-Neptunes in compact configurations. Using $N$-body simulations, we examine the in…

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;…

Characterization of migration in gravitationally unstable disks is necessary to understand the fate of protoplanets formed by disk instability. As part of a larger study, we are using a 3D radiative hydrodynamics code to investigate how an…

Short-period super-Earths and mini-Neptunes encircle more than $\sim50\%$ of Sun-like stars and are relatively amenable to direct observational characterization. Despite this, environments in which these planets accrete are difficult to…

Stable, hydrogen-burning, M dwarf stars comprise about 75% of all stars in the Galaxy. They are extremely long-lived and because they are much smaller in mass than the Sun (between 0.5 and 0.08 MSun), their temperature and stellar…