Related papers: Spacing of Kepler Planets: Sculpting by Dynamical …
The Kepler-discovered Systems with Tightly-packed Inner Planets (STIPs), typically with several planets of Earth to super-Earth masses on well-aligned, sub-AU orbits may host the most common type of planets, including habitable planets, in…
Although the architectures of compact multiple-planet systems are well-characterized, there has been little examination of their "outer edges", or the locations of their outermost planets. Here we present evidence that the observed…
The majority of the discovered transiting circumbinary planets are located very near the innermost stable orbits permitted, raising questions about the origins of planets in such perturbed environments. Most favored formation scenarios…
The existence of planets born in environments highly perturbed by a stellar companion represents a major challenge to the paradigm of planet formation. In numerical simulations, the presence of a close binary companion stirs up the relative…
This paper considers the stability of tidal equilibria for planetary systems in which stellar rotation provides a significant contribution to the angular momentum budget. We begin by applying classic stability considerations for two bodies…
The Kepler mission results indicate that systems of tightly-packed inner planets (STIPs) are present around of order 5% of FGK field stars (whose median age is ~5 Gyr). We propose that STIPs initially surrounded nearly all such stars and…
Current observations indicate that the planet formation process often produces multiple planet systems with nearly circular orbits, regular spacing, a narrow range of inclination angles, and similar planetary masses of order $m_{\rm…
In this paper, we investigate the conditions required for the 3 and 17 Earth mass solid planets in the Kepler-10 system to have formed through collisions and mergers within an initial population of embryos. By performing a large number of…
At least two multi-planetary systems in a 4:3 mean motion resonance have been found by radial velocity surveys. These planets are gas giants and the systems are only stable when protected by a resonance. Additionally the Kepler mission has…
The multiple-planet systems discovered by the Kepler mission show an excess of planet pairs with period ratios just wide of exact commensurability for first-order resonances like 2:1 and 3:2. In principle, these planet pairs could have both…
Population studies of Kepler's multi-planet systems have revealed a surprising degree of structure in their underlying architectures. Information from a detected transiting planet can be combined with a population model to make predictions…
The discovery of transiting circumbinary planets by the Kepler mission suggests that planets can form efficiently around binary stars. None of the stellar binaries currently known to host planets has a period shorter than 7 days, despite…
The distribution of orbital period ratios of adjacent planets in extra-solar planetary systems discovered by the {\it Kepler} space telescope exhibits a peak near $\sim1.5$--$2$, a long tail of larger period ratios, and a steep drop-off in…
We present the results of planet formation N-body simulations based on a comprehensive physical model that includes planetary mass growth through mutual embryo collisions and planetesimal/boulder accretion, viscous disc evolution, planetary…
In the solar neighborhood, where the typical relaxation timescale is larger than the cosmic age, at least 10\% to 15\% of Sun-like stars have planetary systems with Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, dense star clusters, charactered by…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
We fit a dynamical model to Kepler systems that contain four or more transiting planets using the analytic method AnalyticLC, and obtain physical and orbital parameters for 101 planets in 23 systems, of which 95 are of mass significance…
Observed high multiplicity planetary systems are often tightly packed. Numerical studies indicate that such systems are susceptible to dynamical instabilities. Dynamical instabilities in close-in tightly packed systems, similar to those…
Observations in the past decade have revealed extrasolar planets with a wide range of orbital semimajor axes and eccentricities. Based on the present understanding of planet formation via core accretion and oligarchic growth, we expect that…
Radial velocity searches for exoplanets have detected many multi-planet systems around nearby bright stars. An advantage of this technique is that it generally samples the orbit outside of inferior/superior conjunction, potentially allowing…