Related papers: Effects of a planetesimal debris disk on stability…
High-contrast near-infrared imaging of the nearby star HR 8799 has shown three giant planets. Such images were possible due to the wide orbits (> 25 AU) and youth (< 100 Myr) of the imaged planets, which are still hot and bright as they…
The number of stars that are known to have debris disks is greater than that of stars known to harbour planets. These disks are detected because dust is created in the destruction of planetesimals in the disks much in the same way that dust…
Many observed giant planets lie on eccentric orbits. Such orbits could be the result of strong scatterings with other giant planets. The same dynamical instability that produces these scatterings may also cause habitable planets in interior…
The formation of a planetary system from the protoplanetary disk leads to destruction of the latter; however, a debris disk can remain in the form of asteroids and cometary material. The motion of planets can cause the formation of…
Main sequence stars are commonly surrounded by debris disks, composed of cold dust continuously replenished by a reservoir of undetected dust-producing planetesimals. In a planetary system with a belt of planetesimals (like the Solar…
Debris disks are evidence that stars harbor reservoirs of dust-producing plantesimals on spatial scales similar the solar system. Debris disks present a wide range of sizes and structural features and there is growing evidence that, in some…
Debris disc analysis and modelling provide crucial information about the structure and the processes at play in extrasolar planetary systems. In binary systems, this issue is more complex because the disc should in addition respond to the…
Debris disks are the dust disks found around ~20% of nearby main sequence stars in far-IR surveys. They can be considered as descendants of protoplanetary disks or components of planetary systems, providing valuable information on…
Compact planetary systems with more than two planets can undergo orbital crossings from planet-planet perturbations. The time which the system remains stable without orbital crossings has an exponential dependence on the initial orbital…
The search for exoplanets has revealed a diversity of planetary system architectures, the vast majority of which diverge significantly from the template of the solar system. In particular, giant planets beyond the snow line are relatively…
Context: Since circumstellar dust in debris disks is short-lived, dust-replenishing requires the presence of a reservoir of planetesimals. These planetesimals in the parent belt of debris disks orbit their host star and continuously supply…
We have performed H and Ks band observations of the planetary system around HR 8799 using the new AO system at the Large Binocular Telescope and the PISCES Camera. The excellent instrument performance (Strehl ratios up to 80% in H band)…
We study the dynamical origin of the structures observed in the scattered-light images of the resolved debris disk around HD 141569A. We explore the roles of radiation pressure from the central star, gas drag from the gas disk, and the…
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…
Debris discs consist of belts of bodies ranging in size from dust grains to planetesimals; these belts are visible markers of planetary systems around other stars that can reveal the influence of extrasolar planets through their shape and…
The three-planet extrasolar system of HD 181433 has been detected with HARPS. The best-fit solution, announced by the discovery team, describes a highly unstable, self-disrupting configuration. In fact, a narrow observational window, only…
We describe gravitational stirring models of planetary debris disks using a new multi-annulus planetesimal evolution code. The current code includes gravitational stirring and dynamical friction; future studies will include coagulation,…
The study of the planet-debris disk connection can shed light on the formation and evolution of planetary systems, and may help predict the presence of planets around stars with certain disk characteristics. In preliminary analyses of the…
Extreme debris disks can show short term behaviour through the evolution and clearing of small grains produced in giant impacts, and potentially a longer period of variability caused by a planetesimal population formed from giant impact…
We show that interaction with a gas disk may produce young planetary systems with closely-spaced orbits, stabilized by mean-motion resonances between neighbors. On longer timescales, after the gas is gone, interaction with a remnant…