Related papers: The Invisible Majority? Evolution and Detection of…
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…
To understand giant planet formation, we need to focus on host stars close to $1.7\ \rm M_{\odot}$, where the occurrence rate of these planets is the highest. In this initial study, we carry out pebble-driven core accretion planet formation…
Earth-mass bodies are expected to undergo Type I migration directed either inward or outward depending on the thermodynamical state of the protoplanetary disc. Zones of convergent migration exist where the Type I torque cancels out. We…
We study the final architecture of planetary systems that evolve under the combined effects of planet-planet and planetesimal scattering. Using N-body simulations we investigate the dynamics of marginally unstable systems of gas and ice…
Transiting extrasolar planets are now discovered jointly by photometric surveys and by radial velocimetry. We want to determine whether the different data sets are compatible between themselves and with models of the evolution of extrasolar…
Cold Jovian planets play an important role in sculpting the dynamical environment in which inner terrestrial planets form. The core accretion model predicts that giant planets cannot form around low-mass M dwarfs, although this idea has…
As hundreds of gas giant planets have been discovered, we study how these planets form and evolve in different stellar environments, specifically in multiple stellar systems. In such systems, stellar companions may have a profound influence…
We investigate an in-situ formation scenario for Earth-mass terrestrial planets in short-period, potentially habitable orbits around low-mass stars (M_star < 0.3 M_sun). We then investigate the feasibility of detecting these Earth-sized…
We examine the predictions of the core accretion - gas capture model concerning the efficiency of planet formation around stars with various masses. First, we follow the evolution of gas and solids from the moment when all solids are in the…
The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…
Microlensing surveys, which have discovered about a dozen extrasolar planets to date, have focused on the small minority of high-magnification lensing events, which have a high sensitivity to planet detection. In contrast, second-generation…
NASA's TESS mission is expected to discover hundreds of M dwarf planets. However, few studies focus on how planets form around low-mass stars. We aim to better characterize the formation process of M dwarf planets to fill this gap and aid…
Recent observational findings have suggested a positive correlation between the occurrence rates of inner super-Earths and outer giant planets. These results raise the question of whether this trend can be reproduced and explained by planet…
Our recent N-body simulations of planetary system formation, incorporating models for the main physical processes thought to be important during the building of planets (i.e. gas disc evolution, migration, planetesimal/boulder accretion,…
Newly-formed planetary systems with ages of <10 Myr offer many unique insights into the formation, evolution, and fundamental properties of extrasolar planets. These planets have fallen beyond the limits of past surveys, but as we enter the…
We conducted a Doppler survey at Keck combined with NIRC2 K-band AO imaging to search for massive, long-period companions to 123 known exoplanet systems with one or two planets detected using the radial velocity (RV) method. Our survey is…
CONTEXT. Exoplanet searches have demonstrated that giant planets are preferentially found around metal-rich stars and that their fraction increases with the stellar mass. AIMS. During the past six years, we have conducted a radial velocity…
We present a series of calculations aimed at examining how an inner system of planetesimals/protoplanets, undergoing terrestrial planet formation, evolves under the influence of a giant planet undergoing inward type II migration through the…
Close-in giant planets are thought to have formed in the cold outer regions of planetary systems and migrated inward, passing through the orbital parameter space occupied by the terrestrial planets in our own Solar System. We present…
We present observations of microlensing event MACHO-98-BLG-35 which reached a peak magnification factor of almost 80. These observations by the Microlensing Planet Search (MPS) and the MOA Collaborations place strong constraints on the…