Related papers: Planet Formation Imager (PFI): Introduction and Te…
We propose a comprehensive survey of giant planets ranging from close-in highly irradiated hot Jupiters to young, wide-orbit directly imaged planets. The combination of two established techniques for probing planetary atmospheric…
As part of a national scientific network 'Pathways to Habitability' the formation of planets and the delivery of water onto these planets is a key question as water is essential for the development of life. In the first part of the paper we…
The compact multi-transiting planet systems discovered by Kepler challenge planet formation theories. Formation in situ from disks with radial mass surface density, $\Sigma$, profiles similar to the minimum mass solar nebula (MMSN) but…
We have now accumulated a wealth of observations of the planet-formation environment and of mature planetary systems. These data allow us to test and refine theories of gas-giant planet formation by placing constraints on the conditions and…
The Kepler mission has discovered more than 4000 exoplanet candidates. Many are in systems with tightly packed inner planets. Inside-Out Planet Formation (IOPF) has been proposed to explain these systems. It involves sequential in situ…
The formation of planets with gaseous envelopes takes place in protoplanetary accretion discs on time-scales of several millions of years. Small dust particles stick to each other to form pebbles, pebbles concentrate in the turbulent flow…
The dispersed fixed-delay interferometer (DFDI) represents a new instrument concept for high-precision radial velocity (RV) surveys for extrasolar planets. A combination of Michelson interferometer and medium-resolution spectrograph, it has…
Long-baseline interferometry at optical and near-infrared wavelengths is an emerging technology which is quickly becoming a useful tool to investigate stellar atmospheres and to compare observations with models. Stellar atmosphere models…
There is growing evidence that planet formation begins early, within the $\lesssim 1$Myr Class 0/I phase, when infall dominates disk dynamics. Our goal is to determine if Class 0/I disks reach the conditions needed to form planetesimals…
It is widely accepted that rocky planets form in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks (PPD) about 1 - 10 AU from the star. However, theoretical calculations show that when particles reach the size for which the radial migration is the…
Space-based direct imaging provides prospects for detection and spectral characterization of exoplanets at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Integral field spectrographs (IFS) have been historically baselined for these mission…
FORUM (Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring) was selected in 2019 as the ninth Earth Explorer mission by the European Space Agency (ESA). Its primary objective is to collect interferometric measurements in the…
Mid-infrared imaging traces the sub-micron and micron sized dust grains in protoplanetary disks and it offers constraints on the geometrical properties of the disks and potential companions, particularly if those companions have…
Systems with tightly-packed inner planets (STIPs) are very common. Chatterjee & Tan proposed Inside-Out Planet Formation (IOPF), an in situ formation theory, to explain these planets. IOPF involves sequential planet formation from…
In models of planetary accretion, pebbles form by dust coagulation and rapidly migrate toward the central star. Planetesimals may continuously form from pebbles over the age of the protoplanetary disk by yet uncertain mechanisms. Meanwhile,…
Photometric pipelines struggle to estimate both the flux and flux uncertainty for stars in the presence of structured backgrounds such as filaments or clouds. However, it is exactly stars in these complex regions that are critical to…
Planets are born from the gas and dust discs surrounding young stars. Energetic radiation from the central star can drive thermal outflows from the discs atmospheres, strongly affecting the evolution of the discs and the nascent planetary…
The Stellar Imager (SI) is a UV-Optical, Space-Based Interferometer designed to enable 0.1 milli-arcsecond (mas) spectral imaging of stellar surfaces and of the Universe in general and asteroseismic imaging of stellar interiors. SI is…
Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…
Despite the revolution in our knowledge resulting from the detection of planets around mature stars, we know almost nothing about planets orbiting young stars because rapid rotation and active photospheres preclude detection by radial…