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A well-known bottleneck for the core-accretion model of giant-planet formation is the loss of the cores into the star by Type-I migration, due to the tidal interactions with the gas disk. It has been shown that a steep surface-density…
Gravitational torques between a planet and gas in the protoplanetary disk result in orbital migration of the planet, and are likely to play an important role in the formation and early evolution of planetary systems. For masses comparable…
Over the last two decades, a large population of close-in planets has been detected around a wide variety of host stars. Such exoplanets are likely to undergo planetary migration through magnetic and tidal interactions. We aim to follow the…
The early stages of dynamical evolution of planetary systems are often shaped by dissipative processes that drive orbital migration. In multi-planet systems, convergent amassing of orbits inevitably leads to encounters with rational period…
Unlike the Solar System planets, thousands of smaller bodies beyond Neptune orbit the Sun on eccentric ($e >$ 0.1) and ($i>$ 3$^\circ$) orbits. While migration of the giant planets during the early stages of Solar System evolution can…
The observation of massive exoplanets at large separation from their host star, like in the HR 8799 system, challenges theories of planet formation. A possible formation mechanism involves the fragmentation of massive self-gravitating discs…
Planet migration is the process by which a planet's orbital radius changes in time. The main agent for causing gas giant planet migration is the gravitational interaction of the young planet with the gaseous disk from which it forms. We…
According to current theories, tidal interactions between a disk and an embedded planet may lead to the rapid migration of the protoplanet on a timescale shorter than the disk lifetime or estimated planetary formation timescales. Therefore,…
A commonly noted feature of the population of multi-planet extrasolar systems is the rarity of planet pairs in low-order mean-motion resonances. We revisit the physics of resonance capture via convergent disk-driven migration. We point out…
Planet-planet scattering is the leading mechanism to explain the broad eccentricity distribution of observed giant exoplanets. Here we study the orbital stability of primordial giant planet moons in this scenario. We use N-body simulations…
Many dynamical aspects of the solar system can be explained by the outer planets experiencing a period of orbital instability sometimes called the Nice Model. Though often correlated with a perceived delayed spike in the lunar cratering…
We present a short review of the impact regime experienced by the terrestrial planets within our own Solar system, describing the three populations of potentially hazardous objects which move on orbits that take them through the inner Solar…
We present a mechanism related to the migration of giant protoplanets embedded in a protoplanetary disc whereby a giant protoplanet is caught up, before having migrated all the way to the central star, by a lighter outer giant protoplanet.…
A key challenge for protoplanetary disks and planet formation models is to be able to make a reliable connection between observed structures in the disks emission, like bright and dark rings or asymmetries, and the supposed existence of…
Dynamical instabilities among giant planets are thought to be nearly ubiquitous, and culminate in the ejection of one or more planets into interstellar space. Here we perform N-body simulations of dynamical instabilities while accounting…
The satellites of extrasolar planets (exomoons) have been recently proposed as astrobiological targets. Since giant planets in the habitable zone are thought to have migrated there, it is possible that they may have captured a former…
Recent {\em Kepler} observations revealed an unexpected abundance of "hot" Earth-size to Neptune-size planets in the inner $0.02-0.2$ AU from their parent stars. We propose that these smaller planets are the remnants of massive giant…
Discoveries of exoplanets orbiting evolved stars motivate critical examinations of the dynamics of $N$-body systems with mass loss. Multi-planet evolved systems are particularly complex because of the mutual interactions between the…
The newly formed giant planets may have migrated and crossed a number of mutual mean motion resonances (MMRs) when smaller objects (embryos) were accreting to form the terrestrial planets. We investigated the effects of the…
Exoplanets show a pile-up of Jupiter-size planets in orbits with a 3-day period. A fraction of these hot Jupiters have retrograde orbits with respect to the parent star's rotation. To explain these observations we performed a series of…