Related papers: Dynamical evolution of planetary systems
Evidence of mutually inclined planetary orbits has been reported for giant planets these last years. Here we aim to study the impact of eccentric and inclined massive giant planets on the terrestrial planet formation process, and…
The Solar System's orbital structure is thought to have been sculpted by an episode of dynamical instability among the giant planets. However, the instability trigger and timing have not been clearly established. Hydrodynamical modeling has…
Doppler planet searches revealed that many giant planets orbit close to their host star or in highly eccentric orbits. These and subsequent observations inspired new theories of planet formation that invoke gravitation interactions in…
Nearly half of the exoplanets found within binary star systems reside in very wide binaries with average stellar separations beyond 1,000 AU (1 AU being the Earth-Sun distance), yet the influence of such distant binary companions on…
Nowadays, many extrasolar planetary systems possessing at least one planet on a highly eccentric orbit have been discovered. In this work, we study the possible long-term stability of such systems. We consider the general three body problem…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
Outer satellites of the planets have distant, eccentric orbits that can be highly inclined or even retrograde relative to the equatorial planes of their planets. These irregular orbits cannot have formed by circumplanetary accretion and are…
During the late stage of planet formation when Mars-size cores appear, interactions among planetary cores can excite their orbital eccentricities, speed their merges and thus sculpture the final architecture of planet systems. This series…
The statistics of extrasolar planetary systems indicate that the default mode of planet formation generates planets with orbital periods shorter than 100 days, and masses substantially exceeding that of the Earth. When viewed in this…
Our understanding of extra-solar planet systems is highly driven by advances in observations in the past decade. Thanks to high precision spectrograph, we are able to reveal unseen companions to stars with the radial velocity method. High…
Planets with masses between 0.1 - 10 M_earth are believed to host dense atmospheres. These atmospheres can play an important role on the planet's spin evolution, since thermal atmospheric tides, driven by the host star, may counterbalance…
In the Solar system the planets' compositions vary with orbital distance, with rocky planets in close orbits and lower-density gas giants in wider orbits. The detection of close-in giant planets around other stars was the first clue that…
Recent discoveries of several transiting planets with clearly non-zero eccentricities and some large inclinations started changing the simple picture of close-in planets having circular and well-aligned orbits. Two major scenarios to form…
The late-stage formation of giant planetary systems is rich in interesting dynamical mechanisms. Previous simulations of three giant planets initially on quasi-circular and quasi-coplanar orbits in the gas disc have shown that highly…
In a multi-planet system, a gradual change in one planet's semi-major axis will affect the eccentricities of all the planets, as angular momentum is distributed via secular interactions. If tidal dissipation in the planet is the cause of…
Exoplanets are organized in a broad array of orbital configurations that reflect their formation along with billions of years of dynamical processing through gravitational interactions. This history is encoded in the angular momentum…
The distribution of eccentricities e of extra-solar planets with semi-major axes a > 0.2 AU is very uniform, and values for e are generally large. For a < 0.2 AU, eccentricities are much smaller (most e < 0.2), a characteristic widely…
Although the majority of radial velocity detected planets have been found orbiting solar-type stars, a fraction of them have been discovered around giant stars. These planetary systems have revealed different orbital properties when…
A survey of currently known planet-hosting stars indicates that approximately 25% of extrasolar planetary systems are within dual-star environments. Several of these systems contain stellar companions on moderately close orbits, implying…
We investigate the interaction between an eccentric planet and a less massive external debris disc. This scenario could occur after planet-planet scattering or merging events. We characterise the evolution over a wide range of initial…