Related papers: Consolidating and Crushing Exoplanets: Did it happ…
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…
The high-multiplicity exoplanet systems are generally more tightly packed when compared to the solar system. Such compact multi-planet systems are often susceptible to dynamical instability. We investigate the impact of dynamical…
Currently, we have only limited means to probe the presence of planets at large orbital separations. Foreman-Mackey et al. searched for long-period transiting planets in the Kepler light curves using an automated pipeline. Here, we apply…
We present a solution to the long outstanding meter barrier problem in planet formation theory. As solids spiral inward due to aerodynamic drag, they will enter disk regions that are characterized by high temperatures, densities, and…
The Kepler mission observed thousands of transiting exoplanet candidates around hundreds of thousands of FGK dwarf stars. He, Ford, & Ragozzine (2019) (arXiv:1907.07773) applied forward modeling to infer the distribution of intrinsic…
Understanding the occurrence of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of Sun-like stars is essential to the search for Earth analogues. Yet a lack of reliable Kepler detections for such planets has forced many estimates to be derived…
Dynamical evolution within planetary systems can cause planets to be engulfed by their host stars. Following engulfment, the stellar photosphere abundance pattern will reflect accretion of rocky material from planets. Multi-star systems are…
Although the long-term numerical integrations of planetary orbits indicate that our planetary system is dynamically stable at least +/- Gyr, the dynamics of our Solar System includes both chaotic and stable motions: the large planets…
Context. The CoRoT and Kepler missions have paved the way for synergies between exoplanetology and asteroseismology. The use of seismic data helps providing stringent constraints on the stellar properties which directly impact the results…
Multiple planets undergoing disk migration may be captured into a chain of mean-motion resonances with the innermost planet parked near the disk's inner edge. Subsequent dynamical evolution may disrupt these resonances, leading to the…
Kepler-444 is a five planet system around a host-star approximately 11 billion years old. The five transiting planets all have sub-Earth radii and are in a compact configuration with orbital periods between 3 and 10 days. Here we present a…
In many star-planet systems discovered so far, the innermost planet orbits within only a few stellar radii. In these systems, planets could become in-situ probes of the extended stellar magnetic field. Because they disturb the field as they…
Using an ensemble of N-body simulations, this paper considers the fate of the outer gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) after the Sun leaves the main sequence and completes its stellar evolution. Due to solar mass-loss --…
We investigated the underlying architecture of planetary systems by deriving the distribution of planet multiplicity (number of planets) and the distribution of orbital inclinations based on the sample of planet candidates discovered by the…
We constrain the intrinsic architecture of Kepler planetary systems by modeling the observed multiplicities of the transiting planets (tranets) and their transit timing variations (TTVs). We robustly determine that the fraction of Sun-like…
A significant fraction of Kepler systems are closely-packed, largely coplanar and circular. We study the stability of a 6-planet system, Kepler-11, to gain insights on the dynamics and formation history of such systems. Using a technique…
Observations of exoplanets have revealed that systems with planets on closely-spaced orbits are common, which motivates the question "How closely can planets orbit to one another and still be dynamically-stable for very long times?". To…
With the availability of considerably more data, we revisit the question of how special our Solar System is, compared to observed exoplanetary systems. To this goal, we employ a mathematical transformation that allows for a meaningful,…
Exoplanet surveys have confirmed one of humanity's (and all teenagers') worst fears: we are weird. If our Solar System were observed with present-day Earth technology -- to put our system and exoplanets on the same footing -- Jupiter is the…
As part of a large Spitzer/MIPS GTO program, we have searched for infrared excesses due to debris disks toward 26 FGK field stars known from radial velocity (RV) studies to have one or more planets. While none of these stars show excesses…