Related papers: Giant planet and brown dwarf formation

Giant planets and brown dwarfs play a crucial role in star and planet formation, as they are situated at the boundary between planets and stars with uncertain formation mechanisms. Previous observational searches for the formation boundary…

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…

Giant planets acquire gas, ices and rocks during the early formation stages of planetary systems and thus inform us on the formation process itself. Proceeding from inside out, examining the connections between the deep interiors and the…

We review the current state of observational work on the formation of brown dwarfs, focusing on their initial mass function, velocity and spatial distributions at birth, multiplicity, accretion, and circumstellar disks. The available…

Straddling the traditional realms of the planets and the stars, objects below the edge of the main sequence have such unique properties, and are being discovered in such quantities, that one can rightly claim that a new field at the…

To date, hundreds of sub-stellar objects with masses between $1-80\ M_{\rm Jup}$ have been detected orbiting main-sequence stars. The current convention uses the deuterium-burning limit, $M_c \approx 13 M_{\rm Jup}$ to divide this…

Direct imaging searches have begun to detect planetary and brown dwarf companions and to place constraints on the presence of giant planets at large separations from their host star. This work helps to motivate such planet searches by…

One of the fundamental questions in star formation is whether or not brown dwarfs form in the same way as stars, or more like giant planets. If their formation scenarios are different, we might expect brown dwarfs to have a different…

The mass domain where massive extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs overlap is still poorly understood due to the paucity of brown dwarfs orbiting close to solar-type stars, the so-called brown dwarf desert. In this paper we collect all of…

Brown dwarfs, which occupy a fuzzy gap in mass between stars and planets, appear to be common both in the solar neighborhood and in star-forming regions. Their origin is a topic of significant current interest and debate. Some astronomers…

The difference in formation process between binary stars and planetary systems is reflected in their composition as well as their orbital architecture, particularly orbital eccentricity as a function of orbital period. It is suggested here…

The formation mechanisms and chemical compositions of brown dwarfs likely span a diverse range. If they are formed predominantly in isolation by gravitational collapse like dwarf stars then their compositions might follow those of dwarf…

We review recent theoretical progress aimed at understanding the formation and the early stages of evolution of giant planets, low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. Calculations coupling giant planet formation, within a modern version of the…

This White Paper, submitted to the National Academy of Sciences' Astro2010 Decadal Review Committee, focuses on 2 central themes in the study of young brown dwarfs -- their formation mechanism and disk characteristics -- which are of direct…

Brown dwarfs, which straddle the mass range between stars and planets, appear to be common both in the solar neighborhood and in star-forming regions. Their ubiquity makes the question of their origin an important one both for our…

Gas giant planets, if present, are the most massive objects in a planetary system and play a pivotal role in shaping its overall architecture. The formation of these planets has constantly been a central issue in planetary science.…

In this review, we summarize our present knowledge of the behaviour of the mass-radius relationship from solar-type stars down to terrestrial planets, across the regime of substellar objects, brown dwarfs and giant planets. Particular…

Direct imaging has confirmed the existence of substellar companions on wide orbits. To understand the formation and evolution mechanisms of these companions, the full population properties must be characterized. We aim at detecting giant…

Context: The principal mechanism by which brown dwarfs form, and its relation to the formation of higher-mass (i.e. hydrogen-burning) stars, is poorly understood. Aims: We advocate a new model for the formation of brown dwarfs. Methods: In…

We rehearse the physical and theoretical considerations that define the nature of Brown Dwarfs, in particular the maximum mass for a Brown Dwarf (set by the Hydrogen-Burning Limit) and the minimum mass for a Brown Dwarf (set by the Opacity…