Related papers: The coolest 'stars' are free-floating planets
Through the study of two absorption spectral features in the optical range (Mg2 and the 4000 A break), we find evidence for star formation in the inner regions of cooling-flow galaxies. The application of simple stellar population models…
Core accretion and disk instability have traditionally been regarded as the two competing possible paths of planet formation. In recent years, evidence have accumulated in favor of core accretion as the dominant mode, at least for close-in…
We present a theoretical model for primordial star formation. First we describe the structure of the initial gas cores as virialized, quasi-hydrostatic objects in accord with recent high resolution numerical studies. The accretion rate can…
The favored theoretical explanation for giant planet formation -- in both our solar system and others -- is the core accretion model (although it still has some serious difficulties). In this scenario, planetesimals accumulate to build up…
Most studies concerning the growth and evolution of massive planets focus either on their accretion or their migration only. In this work we study both processes concurrently to investigate how they might mutually affect each other. We…
The unexpected discovery of hot Jupiters challenged the classical theory of planet formation inspired by our solar system. Until now, the origin and evolution of hot Jupiters are still uncertain. Determining their age distribution and…
Recent observations have shown the presence of extra-solar planets in Galactic open stellar clusters, as in the Praesepe (M44). These systems provide a favorable environment for planetary formation due to the high heavy-element content…
Massive cores of the giant planets are thought to have formed in a gas disk by accretion of pebble-size particles whose accretional cross-section is enhanced by aerodynamic gas drag [1][2]. A commonly held view is that the terrestrial…
Gravitationally unstable disks can fragment and form bound objects provided that their cooling time is short. In protoplanetary disks radiative cooling is likely to be too slow to permit formation of planets by fragmentation within several…
We consider trends resulting from two formation mechanisms for short-period super-Earths: planet-planet scattering and migration. We model scenarios where these planets originate near the snow line in ``cold finger'' circumstellar disks.…
We show that the recently developed thermal model which successfully describes how jets are launched by young stellar objects, when applied to system containing disk-accreting white dwarfs naturally explain the otherwise surprising absence…
Theory predicts and observations confirm that low-mass stars (like the Sun) in their early life grow by accreting gas from the surrounding material. But for stars ~ 10 times more massive than the Sun (~10 M_sun), the powerful stellar…
We study rapidly accreting, gravitationally unstable disks with a series of global, three dimensional, numerical experiments using the code ORION. In this paper we conduct a numerical parameter study focused on protostellar disks, and show…
We report the results of our three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulation of collapsing unmagnetized molecular cloud cores. We investigate the formation and evolution of the circumstellar disk and the clumps formed by disk…
The processes leading to the birth of low-mass stars such as our Sun have been well studied, but the formation of high-mass (> 8 x Sun's mass) stars has heretofore remained poorly understood. Recent observational studies suggest that…
The origin of supermassive black holes is an open question that has been explored considering gas- and collision-based formation channels to explain the high number of quasars observed in the early Universe. According to numerical…
(Abridged) The chemical composition of planetary atmospheres has long been thought to store information regarding where and when a planet accretes its material. Predicting this chemical composition theoretically is a crucial step in linking…
The formation mechanism of the most massive stars is far from completely understood. It is still unclear if the formation is core-fed or clump-fed, i.e. if the process is an extension of what happens in low-mass stars, or if the process is…
It has already been shown, using a local model, that accretion discs with cooling times t_cool <= 3 Omega^-1 fragment into gravitationally bound objects, while those with cooling times t_cool > 3 Omega^-1 evolve into a quasi-steady state.…
We present analytical and numerical solutions which describe a hot, viscous, two-temperature accretion flow onto a rotating neutron star or any other rotating compact star with a surface. We assume Coulomb coupling between the protons and…