Related papers: Speed limit on Neptune migration imposed by Saturn…
Pairs of migrating extrasolar planets often lock into mean motion resonance as they drift inward. This paper studies the convergent migration of giant planets (driven by a circumstellar disk) and determines the probability that they are…
The stellar spin orientation relative to the orbital planes of multiplanet systems are becoming accessible to observations. Here, we analyze and classify different types of spin-orbit evolution in compact multiplanet systems perturbed by an…
The transit method is a promising means to detect exomoons, but few candidates have been identified. For planets close to their stars, the dynamical interaction between a satellite's orbit and the star must be important in their evolution.…
[Abridged] The occurrence rate of observed sub-Neptunes has a break at 0.1 au, which is often attributed to a migration trap at the inner rim of protoplanetary disks where a positive co-rotation torque prevents inward migration. We argue…
In this paper we investigate the effects that an anomalous acceleration as that experienced by the Pioneer spacecraft after they passed the 20 AU threshold would induce on the orbital motions of the Solar System planets placed at…
We perform simulations here that include the gravitational effects of the primordial planetesimal belt consisting of ~10^5 massive bodies. In our simulations, Neptune unlocks from resonance with the other giant planets and begins to migrate…
We consider the dynamical evolution of two planets orbiting in the vicinity of a first order mean motion reso- nance while simultaneously undergoing eccentricity damping and convergent migration. Following Goldreich & Schlichting (2014), we…
Several properties of the Solar System, including the wide radial spacing of the giant planets, can be explained if planets radially migrated by exchanging orbital energy and momentum with outer disk planetesimals. Neptune's…
The gravitational dipole theory of Hadjukovic (2010) is based on the hypothesis that antimatter has a negative gravitational mass and thus falls upwards on Earth. Astrophysically, the model is similar to but more fundamental than Modified…
We demonstrate that the observed distribution of `Hot Neptune'/`Super-Earth' systems is well reproduced by a model in which planet assembly occurs in situ, with no significant migration post-assembly. This is achieved only if the amount of…
We show that the gas giant exoplanet HD 189733b is less oblate than Saturn, based on Spitzer Space Telescope photometry of seven transits. The observable manifestations of oblatenesswould have been slight anomalies during the ingress and…
The differential migration of two planets due to planet-disk interaction can result in capture into the 2:1 eccentricity-type mean-motion resonances. Both the sequence of 2:1 eccentricity resonances that the system is driven through by…
The dynamics of the high-inclination Plutinos is systematically studied. We first present the peculiar features of the 2:3 Neptune mean motion resonance (NMMR) for inclined orbits, especially for the correlation of resonant amplitude…
Existing upper limits on variations in the photospheric radius of the Sun during the solar magnetic activity cycle are at a fractional amplitude of 2x10^{-4}. At that level, the transit duration of a close-in planet around a Sun-like star…
We investigate the prospects for characterizing extrasolar giant planets by measuring planetary oblateness from transit photometry and inferring planetary rotational periods. The rotation rates of planets in the solar system vary widely,…
Saturn's moon Iapetus has an orbit in a transition region where the Laplace surface is bending from the equator to the orbital plane of Saturn. The orbital inclination of Iapetus to the local Laplace plane is ~8 deg, which is unexpected,…
We present the first results from the POSEIDON survey, aimed at constraining the dynamical origins of transiting Neptunes through stellar obliquity measurements. We report Rossiter-McLaughlin observations of two Neptunes, TOI-181 b and…
Saturn's C ring contains multiple structures that appear to be density waves driven by time-variable anomalies in the planet's gravitational field. Semi-empirical extensions of density wave theory enable the observed wave properties to be…
For the majority of short period exoplanets transiting massive stars with radiative envelopes, the spin angular momentum of the host star is greater than the planetary orbital angular momentum. In this case, the orbits of the planets will…
Fast spinning neutron stars, recycled in low mass binaries, may have accreted a substantial amount of mass. The available relativistic measurements of neutron star masses, all clustering around 1.4 M_sun, however refer mostly to slowly…