Related papers: The statistical mechanics of planet orbits
In the standard model of terrestrial planet formation, planets are formed through giant impacts of planetary embryos after the dispersal of the protoplanetary gas disc. Traditionally, $N$-body simulations have been used to investigate this…
Observations of the population of cold Jupiter planets ($r>$1 AU) show that nearly all of these planets orbit their host star on eccentric orbits. For planets up to a few Jupiter masses, eccentric orbits are thought to be the outcome of…
During the late stage of planet formation when Mars-size cores appear, interactions among planetary cores can excite their orbital eccentricities, speed their merges and thus sculpture the final architecture of planet systems. This series…
The last phase of the formation of rocky planets is dominated by collisions among Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos. Simulations of this phase need to handle the difficulty of including the post-impact material without saturating the…
In the standard formation models of terrestrial planets in the solar system and close-in super-Earths in non-resonant orbits recently discovered by exoplanet observations, planets are formed by giant impacts of protoplanets or planetary…
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
Planet--Planet scattering is an efficient and robust dynamical mechanism for producing eccentric exoplanets. Coupled to tidal interactions with the central star, it can also explain close--in giant planets on circularized and potentially…
The giant impact phase of terrestrial planet formation establishes connections between super-Earths' orbital properties (semimajor axis spacings, eccentricities, mutual inclinations) and interior compositions (the presence or absence of…
In most extrasolar planetary systems, the present orbits of known giant planets admit the existence of stable terrestrial planets. Those same giant planets, however, have typically eccentric orbits that hint at violent early dynamics less…
Evidence of mutually inclined planetary orbits has been reported for giant planets these last years. Here we aim to study the impact of eccentric and inclined massive giant planets on the terrestrial planet formation process, and…
Exoplanetary systems host giant planets on substantially non-circular, close-in orbits. We propose that these eccentricities arise in a phase of giant impacts, analogous to the final stage of Solar System assembly that formed Earth's Moon.…
The ubiquity of planets and diversity of planetary systems reveal planet formation encompass many complex and competing processes. In this series of papers, we develop and upgrade a population synthesis model as a tool to identify the…
We study the final architecture of planetary systems that evolve under the combined effects of planet-planet and planetesimal scattering. Using N-body simulations we investigate the dynamics of marginally unstable systems of gas and ice…
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…
(Abridged) In planetary systems with two or more giant planets, dynamical instabilities can lead to collisions or ejections through strong planet--planet scattering. Previous studies for simple initial configurations with two equal-mass…
Planet Planet scattering is a leading dynamical mechanism invoked to explain the present orbital distribution of exoplanets. Many stars belong to binary systems, therefore it is important to understand how this mechanism works in presence…
Remnant planetesimals might have played an important role in reducing the orbital eccentricities of the terrestrial planets after their formation via giant impacts. However, the population and the size distribution of remnant planetesimals…
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…
Terrestrial planets are thought to be the result of a vast number of gravitational interactions and collisions between smaller bodies. We use numerical simulations to show that practically identical initial conditions result in a wide array…
We explore the possibility that the observed eccentricity distribution of extrasolar planets arose through planet-planet interactions, after the initial stage of planet formation was complete. Our results are based on ~3250 numerical…