Related papers: Architectures of Planetary Systems and Implication…
We propose several descriptive measures to characterize the arrangements of planetary masses, periods, and mutual inclinations within exoplanetary systems. These measures are based in complexity theory and capture the global, system-level…
Transiting planets in multiple-star systems, especially high-order multiples, make up a small fraction of the known planet population but provide unique opportunities to study the environments in which planets would have formed.…
With n-body simulations, we model terrestrial circumbinary planet (CBP) formation with an initial surface density profile motivated by hydrodynamic circumbinary gas disc simulations. The binary plays an important role in shaping the initial…
As a direct result of ongoing efforts to detect more exoplanetary systems, an ever-increasing number of multiple-planet systems are being announced. But how many of these systems are truly what they seem? In many cases, such systems are…
Discovering other worlds the size of our own has been a long-held dream of astronomers. The transiting planets Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f, which belong to a multi-planet system, hold a very special place among the many groundbreaking…
The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas giants…
It has been shown that an Earth-size planet or a super-Earth, in resonance with a transiting Jupiter-like body in a short-period orbit around an M star, can create detectable TTV signals (Kirste \& Haghighipour, 2011). Given the low masses…
We study the orbital architecture, physical characteristics of planets, formation and long-term evolution of the Kepler-30 planetary system, detected and announced in 2012 by the KEPLER team. We show that the Kepler-30 system belongs to a…
Planetary satellites are an integral part of the heirarchy of planetary systems. Here we make two predictions concerning their formation. First, primordial satellites, which have an array of distinguishing characteristics, form only around…
Systems of two gravitationally bound exoplanets orbiting a common barycenter outside their physical radii ("binary planets") may result from tidal capture during planet-planet scattering. These objects are expected to form in tight orbits…
Extrasolar multiple-planet systems provide valuable opportunities for testing theories of planet formation and evolution. The architectures of the known multiple-planet systems demonstrate a fascinating level of diversity, which motivates…
The discovery of transiting circumbinary planets by the Kepler mission suggests that planets can form efficiently around binary stars. None of the stellar binaries currently known to host planets has a period shorter than 7 days, despite…
The recent discovery of planets orbiting main sequence binaries will provide crucial constraints for theories of binary and planet formation. The formation pathway for these planets is complicated by uncertainties in the formation mechanism…
We have carried out an extensive study of the possibility of the detection of Earth-mass and super-Earth Trojan planets using transit timing variation method with the Kepler space telescope. We have considered a system consisting of a…
We present new ways to identify single and multiple moons around extrasolar planets using planetary transit timing variations (TTVs) and transit duration variations (TDVs). For planets with one moon, measurements from successive transits…
Planet formation is often considered in the context of one circumstellar disk around one star. Yet stellar binary systems are ubiquitous, and thus a substantial fraction of all potential planets must form and evolve in more complex,…
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…
Most planet pairs in the Kepler data that have measured transit time variations (TTV) are near first-order mean-motion resonances. We derive analytical formulae for their TTV signals. We separate planet eccentricity into free and forced…
The study of our Solar System -- its formation, evolution, and long-term stability -- has been ongoing for centuries and is now a standard part of scientific education. While the formation of other Solar-like exoplanetary systems is…
The basic geometry of the Solar System -- the shapes, spacings, and orientations of the planetary orbits -- has long been a subject of fascination as well as inspiration for planet formation theories. For exoplanetary systems, those same…