Related papers: Testing In Situ Assembly with the Kepler Planet Ca…
At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…
The dynamical history of a planetary system is recorded in the present day architecture of its constituent planets' sizes, orbital periods, and eccentricities. Studying the relationships between these quantities for large populations…
I simulate the evolution of a stellar system hosting two stellar populations whose initial set up is defined according to the two main scenarios proposed for the origin of multiple populations in Galactic globular clusters: (i) formation of…
The Kepler Mission has detected dozens of compact planetary systems with more than four transiting planets. This sample provides a collection of close-packed planetary systems with relatively little spread in the inclination angles of the…
We present a framework to conservatively estimate the probability that any particular planet-like transit signal observed by the Kepler mission is in fact a planet, prior to any ground-based follow-up efforts. We use Monte Carlo methods…
The compact multi-transiting systems discovered by Kepler challenge traditional planet formation theories. These fall into two broad classes: (1) formation further out followed by migration; (2) formation in situ from a disk of gas and…
Most stars form in star clusters and stellar associated. To understand the roles of star cluster environments in shaping the dynamical evolution of planetary systems, we carry out direct $N$-body simulations of four planetary systems models…
The giant impact phase of terrestrial planet formation establishes connections between super-Earths' orbital properties (semimajor axis spacings, eccentricities, mutual inclinations) and interior compositions (the presence or absence of…
Terrestrial planets are commonly observed to orbit M dwarfs with close-in trajectories. In this work, we extensively perform N-body simulations of planetesimal accretion with three models of in-situ, inward migration and reversed migration…
The radii and orbital periods of 4000+ confirmed/candidate exoplanets have been precisely measured by the Kepler mission. The radii show a bimodal distribution, with two peaks corresponding to smaller planets (likely rocky) and larger…
Considering the huge computational resources required by smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations and the overestimation of post-collision materials from perfect merging, we develop a statistical method to deal with collisions…
Planet formation models have been developed during the last years in order to try to reproduce the observations of both the solar system, and the extrasolar planets. Some of these models have partially succeeded, focussing however on…
To date, no accretion model has succeeded in reproducing all observed constraints in the inner Solar System. These constraints include 1) the orbits, in particular the small eccentricities, and 2) the masses of the terrestrial planets --…
When an extrasolar planet passes in front of its star (transits), its radius can be measured from the decrease in starlight and its orbital period from the time between transits. Multiple planets transiting the same star reveal more: period…
We investigate whether any multi-planet systems among Kepler candidates (2011 February release) can harbor additional terrestrial-mass planets or smaller bodies. We apply the "packed planetary systems" hypothesis that suggests all planetary…
The exotic range of known planetary systems has provoked an equally exotic range of physical explanations for their diverse architectures. However, constraining formation processes requires mapping the observed exoplanet population to that…
The apparent dependence of detection frequency of extrasolar planets on the metallicity of their host stars is investigated with Monte Carlo simulations using a deterministic core-accretion planet formation model. According to this model,…
The increasing precision of planetary mass and radius observations is bringing major questions about the structure and formation of planets--such as the nature of the radius valley and origin of super-Mercuries--within reach, demanding the…
This paper reviews coagulation models for planet formation in the Kuiper Belt, emphasizing links to recent observations of our and other solar systems. At heliocentric distances of 35-50 AU, single annulus and multiannulus planetesimal…
Short-period super-Earths and mini-Neptunes encircle more than $\sim50\%$ of Sun-like stars and are relatively amenable to direct observational characterization. Despite this, environments in which these planets accrete are difficult to…