Related papers: Earth and Terrestrial Planet Formation
A substantial number of super-Earths have been discovered, and atmospheres of transiting super-Earths have also been observed by transmission spectroscopy. Several lines of observational evidence indicate that most super-Earths do not…
Pebble accretion refers to the growth of planetary bodies through the accretion of pebble-sized particles. Pebbles are defined in terms of their aerodynamically size $\tau_s$, which describes the level of coupling to the disk gas.…
Most major planetary bodies in the solar system rotate in the same direction as their orbital motion: their spin is prograde. Theoretical studies to explain the direction as well as the magnitude of the spin vector have had mixed success.…
It has been proposed recently that the first step in the formation of both rocky and gas giant planets is dust sedimentation into a solid core inside a gas clump (giant planet embryo). The clumps are then assumed to migrate closer to the…
Giant planet embryos are believed to be spawned by gravitational instability in massive extended (R ~ 100 AU) protostellar discs. In a recent paper we have shown that dust can sediment inside the embryos, as argued earlier by Boss (1998) in…
To study the terrestrial-type planet formation during the post oligarchic growth, the initial distributions of planetary embryos and planetesimals used in N-body simulations play an important role. Most of these studies typically use ad hoc…
The conditions in the protoplanetary disc are determinant for the various planet formation mechanisms. We present a framework which combines self-consistent disc structures with the calculations of the growth rates of planetary embryos via…
With approximately one ninth of Earth's mass, Mars is widely considered to be a stranded planetary embryo that never became a fully-grown planet. A currently popular planet formation theory predicts that Mars formed near Earth and Venus and…
The large number of exoplanets found to orbit their host stars in very close orbits have significantly advanced our understanding of the planetary formation process. It is now widely accepted that such short-period planets cannot have…
The basic structure of the solar system is set by the presence of low-mass terrestrial planets in its inner part and giant planets in its outer part. This is the result of the formation of a system of multiple embryos with approximately the…
Planets form and obtain their compositions from the leftover material present in protoplanetary disks of dust and gas surrounding young stars. The chemical make-up of a disk influences every aspect of planetary composition including their…
We address three questions regarding solar system planets. What determined their number? Why are their orbits nearly circular and coplanar? How long did they take to form? Runaway accretion in a disk of small bodies resulted in a tiny…
Giant planets are tens to thousands of times as massive as the Earth, and many times as large. Most of their volumes are occupied by hydrogen and helium, the primary constituents of the protostellar disks from which they formed.…
The amount of nebular gas that a planet can bind is limited by its cooling rate, which is set by the opacity of its envelope. Accreting dust and pebbles contribute to the envelope opacity and, thus, influence the outcome of planet…
"Pebble snow" describes a planet formation mechanism where icy pebbles in the outer disk reach inner planet embryos as the water ice line evolves inward. We model the effects pebble snow has on sculpting planetary system architectures by…
Prevailing $N$-body planet formation models typically start with lunar-mass embryos and show a general trend of rapid migration of massive planetary cores to the inner Solar System in the absence of a migration trap. This setup cannot…
To date, two planetary systems have been discovered with close-in, terrestrial-mass planets (< 5-10 Earth masses). Many more such discoveries are anticipated in the coming years with radial velocity and transit searches. Here we investigate…
Planets are built from planetesimals: solids larger than a kilometer which grow by colliding pairwise. Planetesimals themselves are unlikely to form by two-body collisions; sub-km objects have gravitational fields individually too weak, and…
In protoplanetary disks, sufficiently massive planets excite pressure bumps, which can then be preferred locations for forming new planet cores. We discuss how this loop may affect the architecture of multi-planet systems, and compare our…
We present a model in which planetesimal disks are built from the combination of planetesimal formation and accretion of radially drifting pebbles onto existing planetesimals. In this model, the rate of accretion of pebbles onto…