Related papers: Tidal Constraints on Planetary Habitability
Whether binaries can harbor potentially habitable planets depends on several factors including the physical properties and the orbital characteristics of the binary system. While the former determines the location of the habitable zone…
Recent observations suggest that many planetary-mass objects may be present in the outer solar system between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. Gravitational perturbations may occasionally bring them into the inner solar system. Their…
Observations of exoplanets and protoplanetary disks show that binary stellar systems can host planets in stable orbits. Given the high binary fraction among stars, the contribution of binary systems to Galactic habitability should be…
The liquid water habitable zone (HZ) describes the orbital distance at which a terrestrial planet can maintain above-freezing conditions through regulation by the carbonate-silicate cycle. Recent calculations have suggested that planets in…
The 4.2-day orbit of the newly discovered planet around 51~Pegasi is formally unstable to tidal dissipation. However, the orbital decay time in this system is longer than the main-sequence lifetime of the central star. Given our best…
In the outer regions of the habitable zone, the risk of transitioning into a globally frozen "snowball" state poses a threat to the habitability of planets with the capacity to host water-based life. We use a one-dimensional energy balance…
We explore the effects of seasonal variability for the climate of Earth-like planets as determined by the two parameters polar obliquity and orbital eccentricity using a general circulation model of intermediate complexity. In the first…
Over the last two decades, a large population of close-in planets has been detected around a wide variety of host stars. Such exoplanets are likely to undergo planetary migration through magnetic and tidal interactions. We aim to follow the…
The habitability of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M dwarfs is a key topic in the search for extraterrestrial life. The climates of these planets differ significantly from the Earth's due to their likely tidal locking, resulting in a…
We describe the long-term evolution of compact systems of terrestrial planets, using a set of simulations that match the statistical properties of the observed exoplanet distribution. The evolution is driven by tidal dissipation in the…
The energy dissipation of wave-like tidal flows in the convective envelope of low-mass stars is one of the key physical mechanisms that shape the orbital and rotational dynamics of short-period planetary systems. Tidal flows, and the…
The obliquities of planet-hosting stars are clues about the formation of planetary systems. Previous observations led to the hypothesis that for close-in giant planets, spin-orbit alignment is enforced by tidal interactions. Here, we…
The orbits of short-period exoplanets are sculpted by tidal dissipation. However, the mechanisms and associated efficiencies of these tidal interactions are poorly constrained. We present robust constraints on the tidal quality factors of…
Context. In tight binary star systems, tidal interactions can significantly influence the rotational and orbital evolution of both stars, and therefore their activity evolution. This can have strong effects on the atmospheric evolution of…
Since 1995, numerous close-in planets have been discovered around low-mass stars (M to A-type stars). These systems are susceptible to be tidally evolving, in particular the dissipation of the kinetic energy of tidal flows in the host star…
The detection of moons orbiting extrasolar planets ("exomoons") has now become feasible. Once they are discovered in the circumstellar habitable zone, questions about their habitability will emerge. Exomoons are likely to be tidally locked…
Extrasolar terrestrial planets with the potential to host life might have large obliquities or be subject to strong obliquity variations. We revisit the habitability of oblique planets with an energy balance climate model (EBM) allowing for…
Eccentricity is an important orbital parameter. Understanding its effect on planetary climate and habitability is critical for us to search for a habitable world beyond our solar system. The orbital configurations of M-dwarf planets are…
A large number of observed exoplanets are part of multiple planet systems. Most of these systems are sufficiently close-in to be tidally evolving. In such systems, there is a competition between the excitation caused by planet-planet…
The efficiency of tidal dissipation provides a zeroth-order link to a planet's physical properties. For super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets in the range $R_{\oplus}\lesssim R_p \lesssim 4 R_{\oplus}$, particularly efficient dissipation…