Related papers: Planets: Power Laws and Classification
Planetary population synthesis is a tool to understand the physics of planetary system formation. It builds on a model that includes a multitude of physical processes. The outcome can be statistically compared with exoplanet observations.…
Following an old idea of Fritz Zwicky, we make an attempt to establish a universal mass function for astronomical objects on all scales. The object classes considered are: solar system planets and small bodies, exoplanets, brown dwarfs,…
The high precision of the latest version of the planetary ephemeris EPM2011 enables one to explore more accurately a variety of small effects in the solar system. The processing of about 678 thousand of position observations of planets and…
Modeling the interior of exoplanets is essential to go further than the conclusions provided by mean density measurements. In addition to the still limited precision on the planets' fundamental parameters, models are limited by the…
The physics of planet formation is investigated using a population synthesis approach. We develop a simple model for planetary growth including pebble and gas accretion, and orbital migration in an evolving protoplanetary disk. The model is…
Recent works have found evidence of significant intrasystem uniformity in planet properties such as radius, mass, and orbital spacing, collectively termed 'peas in a pod' trends. In particular, correlations in radius and mass have been…
Here it is shown how to find the interior structure of a variety of rock-and-iron planetary bodies by using the rock density and some aspects of the core density as known for the Earth and using a convection principle for the iron-rich…
The radius of an exoplanet may be affected by various factors, including irradiation, planet mass and heavy element content. A significant number of transiting exoplanets have now been discovered for which the mass, radius, semi-major axis,…
In this article the concept of mass is analyzed based on the special and general relativity theories and particle (quantum) physics. The mass of a particle (m=E(0)/c^2) is determined by the minimum (rest) energy to create that particle…
We present analytic estimates of the fractional uncertainties on the mass, radius, surface gravity, and density of a transiting planet, using only empirical or semi-empirical measurements. We first express these parameters in terms of…
The conditions that a planet must fulfill to be habitable are not precisely known. However, it is comparatively easier to define conditions under which a planet is very likely not habitable. Finding such conditions is important as it can…
The detailed interior structure models of super-Earth planets show that there is degeneracy in the possible bulk compositions of a super-Earth at a given mass and radius, determined via radial velocity and transit measurements,…
This paper constructs a theoretical framework for calculating the distribution of masses for gas giant planets forming via the core accretion paradigm. Starting with known properties of circumstellar disks, we present models for the…
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 first mass-estimate of an exoplanet around a Sun-like star, 51 Peg b and the first radius measurement of an exoplanet, HD209458b pointed to the challenges of understanding the atmosphere, interior, and evolution of exoplanets including…
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
A surprisingly large amount of information on our solar system can be gained from simple measurements of the apparent angular diameters of the sun and the moon. This information includes the average density of the sun, the distance between…
MassSpec, a method for determining the mass of a transiting exoplanet from its transmission spectrum alone, was proposed by \citet{dew13}. The premise of this method relies on the planet's surface gravity being extracted from the…
The bulk composition of an exoplanet is commonly inferred from its average density. For small planets, however, the average density is not unique within the range of compositions. Variations of a number of important planetary…
We present a mathematical method to statistically decouple the effects of unknown inclination angles on the mass distribution of exoplanets that have been discovered using radial-velocity techniques. The method is based on the distribution…