Related papers: How Empty are Disk Gaps Opened by Giant Planets?
Spatially resolved images of debris disks frequently reveal complex morphologies such as gaps, spirals, and warps. Most existing models for explaining such morphologies focus on the role of massive perturbers (i.e. planets, stellar…
Transitional and pre--transitional disks can be explained by a number of mechanisms. This work aims to find a single observationally detectable marker that would imply a planetary origin for the gap and, therefore, indirectly indicate the…
The formation of planets strongly depends on the total amount as well as on the spatial distribution of solids in protoplanetary disks. Thanks to the improvements in resolution and sensitivity provided by ALMA, measurements of the surface…
Transition disks have dust-depleted inner regions and may represent an intermediate step of an on-going disk dispersal process, where planet formation is probably in progress. Recent millimetre observations of transition disks reveal…
We investigate the possibility to detect giant planets that are still embedded in young circumstellar disks. Based on models with different stellar, planetary, and disk masses, and different radial positions of the planet we analyze the…
Giant, wide-separation planets often lie in the gap between multiple, distinct rings of circumstellar debris: this is the case for the HR\,8799 and HD\,95086 systems, and even the solar system where the Asteroid and Kuiper belts enclose the…
We aim to understand under which conditions a low mass planet can open a gap in viscous dusty protoplanetary discs. For this purpose, we extend the theory of dust radial drift to include the contribution from the tides of an embedded planet…
Transition disks with large inner dust cavities are thought to host massive companions. However, the disk structure inside the companion orbit and how material flows toward an actively accreting star remain unclear. We present a high…
The physical and chemical conditions in young protoplanetary disks set the boundary conditions for planet formation. Although the dust in disks is relatively easily detected as a far-IR photometric ``excess'' over the expected photospheric…
Jupiter and Saturn formed early, before the gas disk dispersed. The presence of gap-opening planets affects the dynamics of the gas and embedded solids and halts the inward drift of grains above a certain size. A drift barrier can explain…
We numerically model the evolution of dust in a protoplanetary disk using a two-phase (gas+dust) Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code, which is non-self-gravitating and locally isothermal. The code follows the three dimensional…
Accurate disk mass measurements are necessary to constrain disk evolution and the timescale of planet formation, but such measurements are difficult to make and are very dependent on assumptions. Here we look at the assumption that the disk…
Circumstellar disks are thought to experience a rapid "transition" phase in their evolution that can have a considerable impact on the formation and early development of planetary systems. We present new and archival high angular resolution…
We present the first results from simulations of processes leading to planet formation in protoplanetary disks with different metallicities. For a given metallicity, we construct a two-dimensional grid of disk models with different initial…
When considering gaps in debris discs, a typical approach is to invoke clearing by an unseen planet within the gap, and derive the planet mass using Wisdom overlap or Hill radius arguments. However, this approach can be invalid if the disc…
The core-accretion and disk instability models have so far been used to explain planetary formation. These models have different conditions, such as planet mass, disk mass, and metallicity for formation of gas giants. The core-accretion…
We present a massive accreting gap (MAG) planet model that ensures large gaps in transitional disks are kept dust free by the scattering action of three co-planar quasi-circular planets in a 1:2:4 Mean Motion Resonance (MMR). This model…
Motivated by recent observational and numerical studies suggesting that collapsing protostellar cores may be replenished from the local environment, we explore the evolution of protostellar cores submerged in the external counter-rotating…
Lava worlds are a potential emerging population of Super-Earths that are on close-in orbits around their host stars with likely partially molten mantles. To date, few studies address the impact of magma on the observed properties of a…
Recent ALMA observations have found many protoplanetary discs with rings that can be explained by gap-opening planets less massive than Jupiter. Meanwhile, recent studies have suggested that protoplanetary discs should have low levels of…