Related papers: Have proto-planetary discs formed planets?
Planet formation via core accretion involves the growth of solids that can accumulate to form planetary cores. There are a number of barriers to the collisional growth of solids in protostellar discs, one of which is the drift, or metre,…
Relatively large dust grains (referred to as pebbles) accumulate at the outer edge of the gap induced by a planet in a protoplanetary disk, and a ring structure with a high dust-to-gas ratio can be formed. Such a ring has been thought to be…
We derived upper limits of the circumstellar gas disk masses around the T Tauri stars St 34 and RX J0432.8+1735 in order to place constraints on theories of planet formation and to explore the evolution of the gas-to-dust ratio during the…
We consider the dynamics of dust and gas during the clearing of protoplanetary discs. We work within the context of a photoevaporation/viscous model for the evolution of the gas disc, and use a two-fluid model to study the dynamics of dust…
The formation of planets strongly depends on the total amount as well as on the spatial distribution of solids in protoplanetary disks. Thanks to the improvements in resolution and sensitivity provided by ALMA, measurements of the surface…
We investigate the evolution of circumstellar discs around T Tauri stars that are ejected from small stellar clusters within molecular clouds. In particular, we study how the interaction that leads to ejection may hasten the transition…
The thick disc contains stars formed within the first Gyr of Galactic history, and little is known about their planetary systems. The Spitzer MIPS instrument was used to search 11 of the closest of these old low-metal stars for…
Intermediate mass planets, from Super-Earth to Neptune-sized bodies, are the most common type of planets in the galaxy. The prevailing theory of planet formation, core-accretion, predicts significantly fewer intermediate-mass giant planets…
Recent observations show that planet formation is already underway in young systems, when the protostar is still embedded into the molecular cloud and the accretion disc is massive. In such environments, the role of self gravity (SG) and…
Celestial bodies with a mass of M ~ 10 M_Jup have been found orbiting nearby stars. It is unknown whether these objects formed like gas-giant planets through core accretion or like stars through gravitational instability. I show that…
In the standard model of gas giant planet formation, a large solid core (~ 10 times the Earth's mass) forms first, then accretes its massive envelope (100 or more Earth masses) of gas. However, inward planet migration due to gravitational…
We describe a model for the long term evolution of a circumplanetary disk that is fed mass from a circumstellar disk and contains regions of low turbulence (dead zones). We show that such disks can be subject to accretion driven outbursts,…
Class I protostars are thought to represent an early stage in the lifetime of protoplanetary disks, when they are still embedded in their natal envelope. Here we measure the disk masses of 10 Class I protostars in the Taurus Molecular Cloud…
We model the process of dust coagulation in protoplanetary disks and calculate how it affects their observational appearance. Our model involves the detailed solution of the coagulation equation at every location in the disk. At regular…
The formation of a circumplanetary disk and accretion of angular momentum onto a protoplanetary system are investigated using 3D hydrodynamical simulations. The local region around a protoplanet in a protoplanetary disk is considered with…
Understanding the evolution and dissipation of protoplanetary disks are crucial in star and planet formation studies. We report the protoplanetary disk population in the nearby young $\sigma$ Orionis cluster (d$\sim$408 pc; age$\sim$1.8…
We use a semi-analytic circumstellar disk model that considers movement of the snow line through evolution of accretion and the central star to investigate how gas giant frequency changes with stellar mass. The snow line distance changes…
I review the processes that shape the evolution of protoplanetary discs around young, solar-mass stars. I first discuss observations of protoplanetary discs, and note in particular the constraints these observations place on models of disc…
Dust constitutes only about one percent of the mass of circumstellar disks, yet it is of crucial importance for the modeling of planet formation, disk chemistry, radiative transfer and observations. The initial growth of dust from…
Recent observations of debris discs, believed to be made up of remnant planetesimals, brought a number of surprises. Debris disc presence does not correlate with the host star's metallicity, and may anti-correlate with the presence of gas…