Related papers: Binary Asteroid Encounters with Terrestrial Planet…
Many astrophysical environments, from star clusters and globular clusters to the disks of Active Galactic Nuclei, are characterized by frequent interactions between stars and the compact objects that they leave behind. Here, using a suite…
Satellites of asteroids have been discovered in nearly every known small body population, and a remarkable aspect of the known satellites is the diversity of their properties. They tell a story of vast differences in formation and evolution…
Stars are commonly formed in binary systems, which provide a natural laboratory for studying planet formation in extreme conditions. In our first paper (Paper I) of a series Xie et al. (2011), we have shown that the intermediate stage -…
To date, several exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars with close binary companions (a~<30 AU). The fact that planets can form in these dynamically challenging environments implies that planet formation must be a robust process.…
Observations of extrasolar planets reveal that planets can be found in close binary systems, where the semi-major axis of the binary orbit is less than 20 AU. The existence of these planets challenges planet formation theory, because the…
At present the possible existence of planets around the stars of a close binary system is still matter of debate. Can planetary bodies form in spite of the strong gravitational perturbations of the companion star? We study in this paper via…
We explore planet formation in binary systems around the central star where the protoplanetary disk plane is highly inclined with respect to the companion star orbit. This might be the most frequent scenario for binary separations larger…
The occurrence of planets in binary star systems has been investigated via a variety of techniques that sample a wide range of semi-major axes, but with a preponderance of such results applicable to planets with semi-major axes less than a…
A sample of spectroscopic binaries and a sample of single planetary systems, both having main-sequence solar-type primary components, are selected in order to compare their eccentricities. The positions of the objects in the…
Circumbinary planets whose orbits become unstable may be ejected, accreted, or even captured by one of the stars. We quantify the relative rates of these channels, for a binary of secondary star's mass fraction 0.1 with an orbit of 1AU. The…
Possible connections between the physical properties of Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA) and their orbital evolution were explored, with emphasis on binary asteroids. Our main starting hypothesis, suggested from the observations, was that the NEA…
In the near-Earth asteroid population, binary and triple systems have been discovered with mutual orbits that have significant eccentricities as well as large semi-major axes. All known systems with eccentric orbits and all widely-separated…
The presence of a stellar companion closer than ~100 AU is likely to affect planet formation and evolution. Yet, the precise effects and their actual impact on planet occurrence are still debated. To bring observational constraints, we have…
Close encounters of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) with large asteroids are a possible source of systematic errors in trajectory propagations and asteroid mitigation. It is, thus, necessary to identify those large asteroids that have to be…
Close, compact, hierarchical, multiple stellar systems, i.e., multiples having an outer orbital period from months to a few years, comprise a small, but continuously growing group of the triple and multiple star zoo. Many of them consist of…
At least two arguments suggest that the orbits of a large fraction of binary stars and extrasolar planets shrank by 1-2 orders of magnitude after formation: (i) the physical radius of a star shrinks by a large factor from birth to the main…
The most puzzling property of the extrasolar planets discovered by recent radial velocity surveys is their high orbital eccentricities, which are very difficult to explain within our current theoretical paradigm for planet formation.…
Moderately close binaries are a special class of targets for planet searches. From a theoretical standpoint, their hospitality to giant planets is uncertain and debated. From an observational standpoint, many of these systems present…
The stars that populate the solar neighbourhood were formed in stellar clusters. Through N-body simulations of these clusters, we measure the rate of close encounters between stars. By monitoring the interaction histories of each star, we…
The habitability of planets in binary star systems depends not only on the radiation environment created by the two stars, but also on the perturbations to planetary orbits and rotation produced by the gravitational field of the binary and…