Related papers: Stars Get Dizzy After Lunch
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…
Giant exoplanets orbiting very close to their parent star (hot Jupiters) are subject to tidal forces expected to synchronize their rotational and orbital periods on short timescales (tidal locking). However, spin rotation has never been…
Potentially habitable planets can orbit close enough to their host star that the differential gravity across their diameters can fix the rotation rate at a specific frequency, a process called tidal locking. Tidally locked planets on…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
We study the evaporation of planets orbiting close to hot (extreme) horizontal branch (EHB) stars. These planets survived the common envelope phase inside the envelope of the reg giant star progenitor. We find that Jupiter-like planets…
We study the orbits, tidal heating and mass loss from satellites around close-in gas giant exoplanets. The focus is on large satellites which are potentially observable by their transit signature. We argue that even Earth-size satellites…
We study tidal dissipation in stars with masses in the range $0.1-1.6 M_\odot$ throughout their evolution, including turbulent effective viscosity acting on equilibrium tides and inertial waves in convection zones, and internal gravity…
Planets that form around stars born in dense stellar environments are subject to dynamical perturbations from other stars in the system. These perturbations will strip outer planets, forming a population of free-floating planets, some of…
Tidal interactions between short-period exoplanets and their host stars drive orbital decay and have likely led to engulfment of planets by their stars. Precise transit timing surveys, with baselines now spanning decades for some planets,…
At least two arguments suggest that the orbits of a large fraction of binary stars and extrasolar planets shrank by 1-2 orders of magnitude after formation: (i) the physical radius of a star shrinks by a large factor from birth to the main…
Tidal friction is thought to be important in determining the long-term spin-orbit evolution of short-period extrasolar planetary systems. Using a simple model of the orbit-averaged effects of tidal friction, we study the evolution of…
It is debated whether close-in giant planets can form in-situ and if not, which mechanisms are responsible for their migration. One of the observable tests for migration theories is the current value of the angle between the stellar…
Circumbinary planets whose orbits become unstable may be ejected, accreted, or even captured by one of the stars. We quantify the relative rates of these channels, for a binary of secondary star's mass fraction 0.1 with an orbit of 1AU. The…
Royal Society Discussion Meeting (2013) `Characterizing exoplanets'. Of the 900+ confirmed exoplanets discovered since 1995 for which we have constraints on their mass (i.e., not including Kepler candidates), 75% have masses larger than…
The discovery of many giant planets in close-in orbits and the effect of planetary and stellar tides in their subsequent orbital decay have been extensively studied in the context of planetary formation and evolution theories. Planets…
The orbits of many observed hot Jupiters are decaying rapidly due to tidal interaction, eventually reaching the Roche limit. We analytically study the ensuing coupled mass loss and orbital evolution during the Roche-lobe overflow and find…
Jovian planet formation has been shown to be strongly correlated with host star metallicity, which is thought to be a proxy for disk solids. Observationally, previous works have indicated that jovian planets preferentially form around stars…
Hot Jupiters (HJs), gas giant planets orbiting their host stars with periods on the order of days, commonly occur in the Galaxy, including relatively massive ($1.6-2.4$ $M_\odot$, i.e., A-type main sequence stars) and evolved stars. The…
Hot Jupiters (HJ) are defined as Jupiter-mass exoplanets orbiting around their host star with an orbital period < 10 days. It is assumed that HJ do not form in-situ but ex-situ. Recent discoveries show that star clusters contribute to the…
The degree of alignment between a star's spin axis and the orbital plane of its planets (the stellar obliquity) is related to interesting and poorly understood processes that occur during planet formation and evolution. Hot Jupiters…