Related papers: Flow of Planets Raises Short Period Fall Off
We identify two classes of transiting planet, based on their equilibrium temperatures and Safronov numbers. We examine various possible explanations for the dichotomy. It may reflect the influence of planet or planetesimal scattering in…
The currently feasible method of detection of Earth-mass planets is transit photometry, with detection probability decreasing with a planet's distance from the star. The existence or otherwise of short-period terrestrial planets will tell…
More than 1500 exoplanets have been discovered around a large diversity of host stars (from M- to A-type stars). Tidal dissipation in their convective envelope is a key actor that shapes the orbital architecture of short-period systems and…
Through tidal dissipation in a slowly spinning host star the orbits of many hot Jupiters may decay down to the Roche limit. We expect that in most cases the ensuing mass transfer will be stable. Using detailed numerical calculations we find…
The origin of hot Jupiters remains a key open question. In the high-eccentricity migration scenario, traditional coreless models predict a strict tidal exclusion zone within $\sim 2.7$ tidal radii $r_\textrm{t}$, in which giant planets are…
We present an analytic description of tides raised on a star by a small orbiting body. In particular, we highlight the disproportionate effect of eccentricity and thus the scope for using these tides to detect and characterise the orbits of…
Over a hundred rocky planets orbiting Sun-like stars in very short orbital periods (<1 day) have been discovered by the Kepler mission. These planets, known as ultra-short-period (USP) planets, are unlikely to have attained their orbits in…
We infer the period ($P$) and size ($R_p$) distribution of Kepler transiting planet candidates with $R_p\ge 1 R_{\rm Earth}$ and $P < 250$ days hosted by solar-type stars. The planet detection efficiency is computed by using measured noise…
Potentially habitable planets can orbit close enough to their host star that the differential gravity across their diameters can fix the rotation rate at a specific frequency, a process called tidal locking. Tidally locked planets on…
Hot Jupiters on extremely short-period orbits are expected to be unstable to tidal dissipation and spiral toward their host stars. That is because they transfer the angular momentum of the orbital motion through tidal dissipation into the…
The radii of some transiting extrasolar giant planets are larger than would be expected by the standard theory. We address this puzzle with the model of coupled radius-orbit tidal evolution developed by \citet{Ibgui_and_Burrows_2009}. The…
Tidal interactions between short-period exoplanets and their host stars drive orbital decay and have likely led to engulfment of planets by their stars. Precise transit timing surveys, with baselines now spanning decades for some planets,…
Probing the connection between a star's metallicity and the presence and properties of any associated planets offers an observational link between conditions during the epoch of planet formation and mature planetary systems. We explore this…
The Kepler planet candidates are an interesting testbed for planet formation scenarios. We present results from N-body simulations of multi-planetary systems that resemble those observed by Kepler. We add both smooth (Type I/II) and…
Tidal interactions shape the evolution of close-in giant planets and internal gravity-wave breaking offers an efficient pathway for dynamical-tide dissipation, although its population-wide impact remains poorly constrained. We aim to…
We suggest the existence of a correlation between the planetary radius and orbital period for planets with radii smaller than 4 R_Earth. Using the Kepler data, we find a correlation coefficient of 0.5120, and suggest that the correlation is…
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…
Kepler will monitor a sufficient number of stars that it is likely to detect single transits of planets with periods longer than the mission lifetime. We show that by combining the exquisite Kepler photometry of such transits with precise…
A planet orbiting in a disk of planetesimals can experience an instability in which it migrates to smaller orbital radii. Resonant interactions between the planet and planetesimals remove angular momentum from the planetesimals, increasing…
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,…