Related papers: The Invisible Majority? Evolution and Detection of…
There are two planetary formation scenarios: core accretion and gravitational disk instability. Based on the fact that gaseous objects are preferentially observed around metal-rich host stars, most extra-solar gaseous objects discovered to…
Planets are thought to form via accretion from a remnant disk of gas and solids around a newly formed star. During this process material in the disk either remains bound to the star as part of either a planet, a smaller celestial body, or…
NASA's Kepler mission discovered $\sim700$ planets in multi-planet systems containing 3 or more transiting bodies, many of which are super-Earths and mini-Neptunes in compact configurations. Using $N$-body simulations, we examine the in…
We describe a coagulation model that leads to the rapid formation of super-Earths and the cores of gas giant planets. Interaction of collision fragments with the gaseous disk is the crucial element of this model. The gas entrains small…
Several studies, observational and theoretical, suggest that planetary systems with only rocky planets should be the most common in the Universe. We study the diversity of planetary systems that might form around Sun-like stars in low-mass…
The apparent dependence of detection frequency of extrasolar planets on the metallicity of their host stars is investigated with Monte Carlo simulations using a deterministic core-accretion planet formation model. According to this model,…
We present a statistical study of the post-formation migration of giant planets in a range of initial disk conditions. For given initial conditions we model the evolution of giant planet orbits under the influence of disk, stellar, and mass…
Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…
Due to their extremely small luminosity compared to the stars they orbit, planets outside our own Solar System are extraordinarily difficult to detect directly in optical light. Careful photometric monitoring of distant stars, however, can…
In order to explain the main characteristics of the observed population of extrasolar planets and the giant planets in the Solar System, we need to get a clear understanding of which are the initial conditions that allowed their formation.…
Gas giant planets are far easier than terrestrial planets to detect around other stars, and are thought to form much more quickly than terrestrial planets. Thus, in systems with giant planets, the late stages of terrestrial planet formation…
The Kepler survey provides a statistical census of planetary systems out to the habitable zone. Because most planets are non-transiting, orbital architectures are best estimated using simulated observations of ensemble populations. Here, we…
Observations of the population of cold Jupiter planets ($r>$1 AU) show that nearly all of these planets orbit their host star on eccentric orbits. For planets up to a few Jupiter masses, eccentric orbits are thought to be the outcome of…
We present the first measurement of planet frequency beyond the "snow line" for planet/star mass-ratios[-4.5<log q<-2]: d^2 N/dlog q/dlog s=(0.36+-0.15)/dex^2 at mean mass ratio q=5e-4, and consistent with being flat in log projected…
The Kepler mission has discovered a large number of planetary systems. We analyze the implications of the discovered single/multi-exoplanet systems from Kepler's data. As done in previous works, we test a simple model in which the intrinsic…
Most known extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been discovered using the radial velocity$^{\bf 1,2}$ or transit$^{\bf 3}$ methods. Both are biased towards planets that are relatively close to their parent stars, and studies find that…
Inside-Out Planet Formation (IOPF) proposes that the abundant systems of close-in Super-Earths and Mini-Neptunes form in situ at the pressure maximum associated with the Dead Zone Inner Boundary (DZIB). We present a model of physical and…
The exotic range of known planetary systems has provoked an equally exotic range of physical explanations for their diverse architectures. However, constraining formation processes requires mapping the observed exoplanet population to that…
The questions of how planets form and how common Earth-like planets are can be addressed by measuring the distribution of exoplanet masses and orbital periods. We report the occurrence rate of close-in planets (with orbital periods less…
Extrasolar planet surveys have begun to detect gas giant planets in orbit around M dwarf stars. While the frequency of gas giant planets around M dwarfs so far appears to be lower than that around G dwarfs, it is clearly not zero. Previous…