Related papers: Spacing of Kepler Planets: Sculpting by Dynamical …
The Kepler mission has recently discovered a number of exoplanetary systems, such as Kepler-11 and Kepler-32, in which ensembles of several planets are found in very closely packed orbits (often within a few percent of an AU of one…
The Kepler space mission has detected a large number of exoplanets in multiple transiting planet systems. Previous studies found that these Kepler multiple planet systems exhibit an intra-system uniformity, namely planets in the same system…
Compact planetary systems with more than two planets can undergo orbital crossings from planet-planet perturbations. The time which the system remains stable without orbital crossings has an exponential dependence on the initial orbital…
Among the numerous discoveries resulting from the {\it Kepler} mission are a plethora of compact planetary systems that provide deep insights into planet formation theories. The architecture of such compact systems also produces unique…
Instabilities and strong dynamical interactions between multiple giant planets have been proposed as a possible explanation for the surprising orbital properties of extrasolar planetary systems. In particular, dynamical instabilities seem…
We have established precise planet radii, semimajor axes, incident stellar fluxes, and stellar masses for 909 planets in 355 multi-planet systems discovered by Kepler. In this sample, we find that planets within a single multi-planet system…
Surveys have revealed many multi-planet systems containing super-Earths and Neptunes in orbits of a few days to a few months. There is debate whether in situ assembly or inward migration is the dominant mechanism of the formation of such…
Closely-packed multi-planet systems are known to experience dynamical instability if the spacings between the planets are too small. Such instability can be tempered by the frictional forces acting on the planets from gaseous discs. A…
We investigate the orbital dynamics of four-planet systems consisting of Earth-mass planets on initially-circular, coplanar orbits around a star of one solar mass. In our simulations, the innermost planet's semimajor axis is set at 1 AU,…
Studies of high-multiplicity, tightly-packed planetary systems suggest that dynamical instabilities are common and affect both the orbits and planet structures, where the compact orbits and typically low densities make physical collisions…
Planet formation is often considered in the context of one circumstellar disk around one star. Yet stellar binary systems are ubiquitous, and thus a substantial fraction of all potential planets must form and evolve in more complex,…
The minimum orbital separation of planets in long-stable planetary systems is often modeled as a step function, parameterized with a single value $\Delta_{min}$ (measured in mutual Hill radius of the two neighboring planets). Systems with…
The {\it Kepler} mission revealed a population of compact multiple-planet systems with orbital periods shorter than a year, and occasionally even shorter than a day. By analyzing a sample of 102 {\it Kepler} and {\it K2} multi-planet…
Motivated by the large number of compact extrasolar planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Mission, this paper considers perturbations due to possible additional outer planets. The discovered compact systems sometimes contain multiple…
We investigate the distributions of the orbital period ratios of adjacent planets in high multiplicity \kepler\ systems (four or more planets) and low multiplicity systems (two planets). Modeling the low multiplicity sample as essentially…
The Kepler-11 planetary system contains six transiting planets ranging in size from 1.8 to 4.2 times the radius of Earth. Five of these planets orbit in a tightly-packed configuration with periods between 10 and 47 days. We perform a…
Unexpected clustering in the orbital elements of minor bodies beyond the Kuiper belt has led to speculations that our solar system actually hosts nine planets, the eight established plus a hypothetical "Planet Nine". Several recent studies…
The Kepler-36 system consists of two planets that are spaced unusually close together, near the 7:6 mean motion resonance. While it is known that mean motion resonances can easily form by convergent migration, Kepler-36 is an extreme case…
The recent discovery of planets orbiting main sequence binaries will provide crucial constraints for theories of binary and planet formation. The formation pathway for these planets is complicated by uncertainties in the formation mechanism…
Transiting planets in multiple-star systems, especially high-order multiples, make up a small fraction of the known planet population but provide unique opportunities to study the environments in which planets would have formed.…