Related papers: Planet Formation Imager (PFI): Introduction and Te…
Space-borne nulling interferometers have long been considered as the best option for searching and characterizing extra-solar planets located in the habitable zone of their parent stars. Solutions for achieving deep starlight extinction are…
Transitional discs are a special type of protoplanetary discs where planet formation is thought to be taking place. These objects feature characteristic inner cavities and/or gaps of a few tens of AUs in the sub-millimitre images of the…
I present a discussion of fundamental stellar parameters and their observational determination in the context of interferometric measurements with current and future optical/infrared interferometric facilities. Stellar parameters and the…
We report results of a recently-completed pre-Formulation Phase study of SPIRIT, a candidate NASA Origins Probe mission. SPIRIT is a spatial and spectral interferometer with an operating wavelength range 25 - 400 microns. SPIRIT will…
The overarching goal of planetary astronomy is to deduce how the present collection of objects found in our Solar System were formed from the original material present in the proto-solar nebula. As over two hundred exo-planetary systems are…
A detailed understanding of the physics of star and planet formation requires study of individual objects as well as statistical assessment of global properties and evolutionary trends. Observational investigations of circumstellar material…
In the era of high-angular resolution astronomical instrumentation, where long and very long baseline interferometers (constituted by many, $\sim$ 20 or more, telescopes) are expected to work not only in the millimeter and submillimeter…
The large population of Earth to super-Earth sized planets found very close to their host stars has motivated consideration of $in$ $situ$ formation models. In particular, Inside-Out Planet Formation is a scenario in which planets coalesce…
The new generation of VLTI instruments (GRAVITY, MATISSE) aims to produce routinely interferometric images to uncover the morphological complexity of different objects at high angular resolution. Image reconstruction is, however, not a…
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) is a new facility instrument for the Gemini Observatory designed to provide direct detection and characterization of planets and debris disks around stars in the solar neighborhood. In addition to its extreme…
We investigate the conditions required for planet formation via gravitational instability (GI) and protoplanetary disk (PPD) fragmentation around M-dwarfs. Using a suite of 64 SPH simulations with $10^6$ particles, the parameter space of…
Context: A full understanding of the planet and moon formation process requires observations that probe the circumplanetary environment of accreting giant planets. The mid-infrared ELT imager and spectrograph (METIS) will provide a unique…
Planetary systems, ours included, are formed in disks of dust and gas around young stars. Disks are an integral part of the star and planet formation process, and knowledge of the distribution and temperature of inner disk material is…
Terrestrial planet formation (TPF) is a difficult problem that has vexed researchers for decades. Numerical models are only partially successful at reproducing the orbital architecture of the inner planets, but have generally not considered…
Inside-Out Planet Formation (IOPF) proposes that the abundant systems of close-in Super-Earths and Mini-Neptunes form in situ at the pressure maximum associated with the Dead Zone Inner Boundary (DZIB). We present a model of physical and…
Our understanding of planet formation has been rapidly evolving in recent years. The classical planet formation theory, developed when the only known planetary system was our own Solar System, has been revised to account for the observed…
Accumulation of dust and ice particles into planetesimals is an important step in the planet formation process. Planetesimals are the seeds of both terrestrial planets and the solid cores of gas and ice giants forming by core accretion.…
Protoplanetary disks naturally emerge during protostellar core-collapse. In their early evolutionary stages, infalling material dominates their dynamical evolution. In the context of planet formation, this means that the conditions in young…
We present a solution to the long outstanding meter barrier problem in planet formation theory. As solids spiral inward due to aerodynamic drag, they will enter disk regions that are characterized by high temperatures, densities, and…
We present the first mid-infrared interferometric measurements of FU Orionis. We clearly resolve structures that are best explained with an optically thick accretion disk. A simple accretion disk model fits the observed SED and visibilities…