Related papers: Stochasticity & Predictability in Terrestrial Plan…

We develop a simple model of planetary formation, focusing our attention on those planets with masses less than 10 Earth masses and studying particularly the primordial spin parameters of planets resulting from the accretion of…

Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…

Numerical simulations of the stochastic end stage of planet formation typically begin with a population of embryos and planetesimals that grow into planets by merging. We analyzed the impact parameters of collisions leading to the growth of…

We review the state of the field of terrestrial planet formation with the goal of understanding the formation of the inner Solar System and low-mass exoplanets. We review the dynamics and timescales of accretion from planetesimals to…

Planetary systems can evolve dynamically even after the planets themselves have fully formed, and there is circumstantial evidence that most planetary systems become unstable after the disappearance of the gaseous protoplanetary disk.…

The abundances of elements in the Earth and the terrestrial planets provide the initial conditions for life and clues as to the history and formation of the Solar System. We follow the pioneering work of Bond et al. (2010) and combine…

As part of a national scientific network 'Pathways to Habitability' the formation of planets and the delivery of water onto these planets is a key question as water is essential for the development of life. In the first part of the paper we…

There is evidence that exoplanet systems display intra-system uniformity in mass, radius, and orbital spacing (like ``peas in a pod'') when compared with the system-to-system variations of planetary systems. This has been interpreted as the…

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…

We present numerical simulations of terrestrial planet formation that examine the growth continuously from planetesimals to planets in the inner Solar System. Previous studies show that the growth will be inside-out, but it is still common…

Recent results have shown that many of the known extrasolar planetary systems contain regions which are stable for both Earth-mass and Saturn-mass planets. Here we simulate the formation of terrestrial planets in four planetary systems --…

Prior work has found that a variety of terrestrial planetary compositions are expected to occur within known extrasolar planetary systems. However, such studies ignored the effects of giant planet migration, which is thought to be very…

Planet-planet collisions are a common outcome of instability in systems of transiting planets close to the star, as well as occurring during in-situ formation of such planets from embryos. Previous N-body studies of instability amongst…

Formation of terrestrial planets by agglomeration of planetesimals in protoplanetary disks sensitively depends on the velocity evolution of planetesimals. We describe a novel semi-analytical approach to the treatment of planetesimal…

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…

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…

The final "giant-impact" phase of terrestrial planet formation is believed to begin with a large number of planetary "embryos" on nearly circular, coplanar orbits. Mutual gravitational interactions gradually excite their eccentricities…

(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…

The newly formed giant planets may have migrated and crossed a number of mutual mean motion resonances (MMRs) when smaller objects (embryos) were accreting to form the terrestrial planets. We investigated the effects of the…

We investigate the formation of terrestrial planets in the late stage of planetary formation using two-planet model. At that time, the protostar has formed for about 3 Myr and the gas disk has dissipated. In the model, the perturbations…