Related papers: Circumstellar Disk Evolution: Constraining Theorie…
(Abridged) We present CARMA observations of the thermal dust emission from the circumstellar disks around the young stars RYTau and DGTau at wavelengths of 1.3mm and 2.8mm. The angular resolution of the maps is as high as 0.15arcsec, or…
The transfer of circumstellar disk mass and momentum onto the protostar and out into the environment occurs via a variety of mechanisms including magnetospheric accretion, jets, outflows, and disk winds. The interplay of these processes…
Stars are fossils that retain the history of their host galaxies. Elements heavier than helium are created inside stars and are ejected when they die. From the spatial distribution of elements in galaxies, it is therefore possible to…
The orbital eccentricity distribution of exoplanets is shaped by a combination of dynamical processes, reflecting both formation conditions and long-term evolution. Probing the orbital dynamics of planets in the kinematic thin and thick…
Debris disks are the dust disks found around ~20% of nearby main sequence stars in far-IR surveys. They can be considered as descendants of protoplanetary disks or components of planetary systems, providing valuable information on…
Our understanding of planet formation has been rapidly evolving in recent years. The classical planet formation theory, developed when the only known planetary system was our own Solar System, has been revised to account for the observed…
Debris disks are tenuous, dust-dominated disks commonly observed around stars over a wide range of ages. Those around main sequence stars are analogous to the Solar System's Kuiper Belt and Zodiacal light. The dust in debris disks is…
Stars form with gaseous and dusty circumstellar envelopes, which rapidly settle into disks that eventually give rise to planetary systems. Understanding the process by which these disks evolve is paramount in developing an accurate theory…
Galaxy disks are characterised by star formation histories that vary systematically along the Hubble sequence. We study global star formation, incorporating supernova feedback, gas accretion and enriched outflows in disks modelled by a…
Circumstellar disks of gas and dust are naturally formed from contracting pre-stellar molecular cores during the star formation process. To study various dynamical and chemical processes that take place in circumstellar disks prior to their…
The formation of low-mass stars in molecular clouds involves accretion disks and jets, which are of broad astrophysical interest. Accreting stars represent the closest examples of these phenomena. Star and planet formation are also…
Protoplanetary disks are the birthplaces of planetary systems. The evolution of the star-disk system and the disk chemical composition determines the initial conditions for planet formation. Therefore a comprehensive understanding of the…
Stars and planets form, live, and evolve in unison. Throughout the life of a star, dusty circumstellar discs and stellar outflows influence the further evolution of both the star(s) and their orbiting planet(s). Planet-forming discs, winds…
The great diversity of extrasolar planetary systems has challenged our understanding of how planets form, and how their orbits evolve as they form. Among the various processes that may account for this diversity, the gravitational…
This paper is one in a series presenting results obtained within the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems (FEPS) Legacy Science Program on the Spitzer Space Telescope. Here we present a study of dust processing and growth in seven…
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…
There are growing amount of very high-resolution polarized scattered light images of circumstellar disks. Nascent giant planets planets are surrounded by their own circumplanetary disks which may scatter and polarize both the planetary and…
Recent discoveries of strongly misaligned transiting exoplanets pose a challenge to the established planet formation theory which assumes planetary systems to form and evolve in isolation. However, the fact that the majority of stars…
Determining how long circumstellar disks last is key to understanding the timescale of planet formation. Typically, this is done by measuring the fraction of young stars with infrared-excess, a sign of circumstellar material, in stellar…
During their formative stages, giant planets are fed by infalling material sourced from the background circumstellar disk. Due to conservation of angular momentum, the incoming gas and dust collects into a circumplanetary disk that…