Related papers: Extrasolar Refractory-Dominated Planetesimals: an …
If the photospheres of solar-type stars represent the composition of circumstellar disks from which any planets formed, spectroscopic determinations of stellar elemental abundances offer information on the composition of those planets,…
Identifying planets around O-type and B-type stars is inherently difficult; the most massive known planet host has a mass of only about $3M_{\odot}$. However, planetary systems which survive the transformation of their host stars into white…
The composition of giant planets' atmospheres is an important tracer of their formation history. While many theoretical studies investigate the heavy-element accretion within a gaseous protoplanetary disk, the possibility of solid accretion…
Detections of planets in eccentric, close (separations of ~20 AU) binary systems such as \alpha Cen or \gamma Cep provide an important test of planet formation theories. Gravitational perturbations from the companion are expected to excite…
Giant planets dominate the mass of many planetary systems, including the Solar System, and represent the best-characterized class of extrasolar planets. Understanding the formation of giant planets bridges the high mass end of the planet…
Polluted white dwarfs serve as astrophysical mass spectrometers - their photospheric abundances are used to infer the composition of planetary objects that accrete onto them. We show that due to asymmetries in the accretion process, the…
Exoplanets have been detected around stars at various stages of their lives, ranging from young stars emerging from formation, to latter stages of evolution, including white dwarfs and neutron stars. Post main sequence stellar evolution can…
In the last years several exoplanets have been discovered that orbit one component of a compact binary system (separation < 50 astronomical units), the probably best-known case is gamma-Cephei. So far, all attempts to explain the in-situ…
Highly-differential spectroscopic studies have revealed that the Sun is deficient in refractory elements relative to solar twins. To investigate the role of giant planets on this signature, we present a high precision abundance analysis of…
The next generation of high-contrast imaging instruments will provide the first unresolved image of an extrasolar planet. While the emitted infrared light from the planet in thermal equilibrium should show almost no phase effect, the…
We computed the abundance of refractory elements in planetary bodies formed in stellar systems with solar chemical composition by combining models for chemical composition and planet formation. We also consider the formation of refractory…
Nine extrasolar planets with masses between 110 and 430M are known to transit their star. The knowledge of their masses and radii allows an estimate of their composition, but uncertainties on equations of state, opacities and possible…
Understanding the fate of planetary systems through white dwarfs which accrete debris crucially relies on tracing the orbital and physical properties of exo-asteroids during the giant branch phase of stellar evolution. Giant branch…
We study the final architecture of planetary systems that evolve under the combined effects of planet-planet and planetesimal scattering. Using N-body simulations we investigate the dynamics of marginally unstable systems of gas and ice…
White dwarfs represent the endpoint of stellar evolution for stars with initial masses between approximately 0.07 msun and 8-10 msun, where msun is the mass of the Sun (more massive stars end their life as either black holes or neutron…
A widely-held assumption is that each single white dwarf containing observable rocky debris requires the presence of at least one terrestrial or giant planet to have gravitationally perturbed the progenitor of the debris into the star.…
White dwarfs which exhibit transit signatures of planetary debris and accreted planetary material provide exceptional opportunities to probe the material composition and dynamical structure of planetary systems. Although previous…
The discovery of planets around massive stars is important for understanding how planet formation and evolution is conditioned by different stellar environments. However, current planetary search surveys have failed to detect planets around…
The large eccentricities of many giant extrasolar planets may represent the endpoint of gravitational scattering in initially more crowded systems. If so, the early evolution of the giant planets is likely to be more restrictive of…
We compute that extrasolar minor planets can retain much of their internal H_2O during their host star's red giant evolution. The eventual accretion of a water-rich body or bodies onto a helium white dwarf might supply an observable amount…