Related papers: Discerning Exoplanet Migration Models Using Spin-O…
Here we present an ensemble study of spin-orbit alignment in 51 close double star systems. We determine spin-orbit angles, obliquities, in 39 of these systems making use of recently improved apsidal motion rate measurements and apsidal…
We present the first evidence of a retrograde orbit of the transiting exoplanet HAT-P-7b. The discovery is based on a measurement of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect with the Subaru HDS during a transit of HAT-P-7b, which occurred on UT 2008…
Context.The Kepler mission has provided a large sample to statistically analyze the orbital properties of the super-Earth planets. We hypothesize that these planets formed early and consider the problem of matching planet formation theory…
Much of the dynamical structure of the Kuiper belt can be explained if Neptune migrated over several AU, and/or if Neptune was scattered to an eccentric orbit during planetary instability. An outstanding problem with the existing formation…
In this paper we analyse giant gap-opening planet migration in protoplanetary discs, focusing on the type II migration regime. According to standard type II theory, planets migrate at the same rate as the gas in the disc, as they are…
The orientation between a star's spin axis and a planet's orbital plane provides valuable information about the system's formation and dynamical history. For non-transiting planets at wide separations, true stellar obliquities are…
Protoplanetary disks are quasi-steady structures whose evolution and dispersal determine the environment for planet formation. I review the theory of protoplanetary disk evolution and its connection to observations. Substantial progress has…
Gas giant planets orbiting within 0.1 AU of their host stars, unlikely to have formed in situ, are evidence for planetary migration. It is debated whether the typical hot Jupiter smoothly migrated inward from its formation location through…
The observed orbits of extrasolar planets suggest that many giant planets migrate a considerable distance towards their parent star as a result of interactions with the protoplanetary disk, and that some of these planets become trapped in…
The migration of Neptune's resonances through the proto-Kuiper belt has been imprinted in the distribution of small bodies in the outer Solar System. Here we analyze five published Neptune migration models in detail, focusing on the high…
Most Sun-like and higher-mass stars reside in systems that include one or more gravitationally bound stellar companions. These systems offer an important probe of planet formation in the most common stellar systems, while also providing key…
We investigate the formation and evolution of misaligned accretion discs around the secondary component of a binary through mass transfer driven by Kozai-Lidov oscillations of the circumprimary disc's eccentricity and inclination. We…
We perform SPH simulations to study precession and changes in alignment between the circumprimary disc and the binary orbit in misaligned binary systems. We find that the precession process can be described by the rigid-disc approximation,…
We constrain the planetary atmospheric mass fraction at the time of the dispersal of the protoplanetary disk and the evolution of the stellar rotation rate for a dozen multi-planet systems that host sub-Neptunes and/or super-Earths. We…
Recent simulations of Be stars in misaligned binary systems have revealed that misalignment between the disc and binary orbit can cause the disc to undergo Kozai-Lidov (KL) oscillations or disc-tearing. We build on our previous suite of…
A significant fraction of hot Jupiters have orbital axes misaligned with their host stars' spin axes. The large stellar obliquities of these giants have long been considered potential signatures of high-eccentricity migration, which is…
The transit method, during which a planet's presence is inferred by measuring the reduction in flux as it passes in front of its parent star, is a highly successful exoplanet detection and characterization technique. During transit, the…
We study the dynamical evolution of a test particle that orbits a star in the presence of an exterior massive planet, considering octupole-order secular interactions. In the standard Kozai mechanism (SKM), the planet's orbit is circular,…
Wide-orbit exoplanets are starting to be detected, and planetary formation models are under development to understand their properties. We propose a population of "Oort" planets around other stars, forming by a mechanism analogous to how…
The Kepler mission and its successor K2 have brought forth a cascade of transiting planets. Many of these planetary systems exhibit multiple members, but a large fraction possess only a single transiting example. This overabundance of…