Related papers: Formation and evolution of planetary systems: the …
Over the past 4 decades, the exploration of planets beyond our solar system has yielded the discovery of over 5600 exoplanets orbiting different stars. Continuous advancements in instrumentation and cutting-edge techniques empower…
Observations of circumstellar disks around stars as a function of stellar properties such as mass, metallicity, multiplicity, and age, provide constraints on theories concerning the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Utilizing…
The current direct observations of brown dwarfs and exoplanets have been obtained using instruments not specifically designed for overcoming the large contrast ratio between the host star and any wide-separation faint companions. However,…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
Ground-based telescopes have been playing a leading role in exoplanet direct imaging science and technological development for the past two decades and will continue to have an indispensable role for the next decade and beyond. Extreme…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
Circumstellar disks have long been regarded as windows into planetary systems. The advent of high sensitivity, high resolution imaging in the submillimetre where both the solid and gas components of disks can be detected opens up new…
Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…
We summarize some of the compelling new scientific opportunities for understanding stars and stellar systems that can be enabled by sub-mas angular resolution, UV/Optical spectral imaging observations, which can reveal the details of the…
With the development of high contrast imaging techniques and infrared detectors, vast efforts have been devoted during the past decade to detect and characterize lighter, cooler and closer companions to nearby stars, and ultimately image…
Modern astronomy has finally been able to observe protoplanetary disks in reasonable resolution and detail, unveiling the processes happening during planet formation. These observed processes are understood under the framework of…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
Diffraction fundamentally limits our ability to image and characterize exoplanets. Current and planned coronagraphic searches for exoplanets are making incredible strides but are fundamentally limited by the inner working angle of a few…
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…
Observations of the high redshift Universe, interpreted in the context of a new generation of computer simulated model Universes, are providing new insights into the processes by which galaxies and quasars form and evolve, as well as the…
It is well established in the local Universe that regions of high star-formation rate are dusty. As a result of this physical causal link, galaxies of increasing current star formation activity emit a larger proportion of their bolometric…
High-resolution absorption spectroscopy toward bright background sources has had a paramount role in understanding early galaxy formation, the evolution of the intergalactic medium and the reionisation of the Universe. However, these…
The study of massive X-ray binaries provides important observational diagnostics for a number of fundamental astrophysical issues, such as the evolution of massive stars, the stellar winds of massive stars, the formation of compact objects…
Using the latest generation of adaptive optics imaging systems together with laser guide stars on 8m-class telescopes, we are finally revealing the previously-hidden population of supernovae in starburst galaxies. Finding these supernovae…
A short review of recent results in long-baseline optical interferometry pertaining to fundamental stellar parameters and the future possibilities this area over the next decade. Included are discussions of accurate stellar masses, links…