Related papers: Disk Dispersal: Theoretical Understanding and Obse…

Gravitationally unstable disks can fragment and form bound objects provided that their cooling time is short. In protoplanetary disks radiative cooling is likely to be too slow to permit formation of planets by fragmentation within several…

We investigate under what circumstances an embedded planet in a protoplanetary disc may sculpt the dust distribution such that it observationally presents as a `transition' disc. We concern ourselves with `transition' discs that have large…

We present a new model for protoplanetary disc evolution. This model combines viscous evolution with photoevaporation of the disc, in a manner similar to Clarke, Gendrin & Sotomayor (2001). However in a companion paper (Alexander, Clarke &…

The stellar birth environment can significantly shorten protoplanetary disc (PPD) lifetimes due to the influence of stellar feedback mechanisms. The degree to which these mechanisms suppress the time and mass available for planet formation…

I review the processes that shape the evolution of protoplanetary discs around young, solar-mass stars. I first discuss observations of protoplanetary discs, and note in particular the constraints these observations place on models of disc…

Protoplanetary discs are dynamic environments where the interplay between chemical processes and mass transport shapes the composition of gas and dust available for planet formation. We investigate the combined effects of volatile chemistry…

We examine the accretion of cores of giant planets from planetesimals, gas accretion onto the cores, and their orbital migration. We adopt a working model for nascent protostellar disks with a wide variety of surface density distributions…

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…

A clear understanding of the chemical processing of matter, as it is transferred from a molecular cloud to a planetary system, depends heavily on knowledge of the physical conditions endured by gas and dust as these accrete onto a disk and…

Circumstellar disks are the sites of planet formation, and the very high incidence of extrasolar planets implies that most of them actually form planetary systems. Studying the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks can thus place…

Over the past 10 years abundant evidence has emerged that many (if not all) stars are born with circumstellar disks. Understanding the evolution of post-accretion disks can provide strong constraints on theories of planet formation and…

Debris disks are the dust disks found around ~20% of nearby main sequence stars in far-IR surveys. They can be considered as descendants of protoplanetary disks or components of planetary systems, providing valuable information on…

Planets form in the discs of gas and dust that surround young stars. It is not known whether gas giant planets on wide orbits form the same way as Jupiter or by fragmentation of gravitationally unstable discs. Here we show that a giant…

We report on the results of the first 3D SPH simulation of massive, gravitationally unstable protoplanetary disks with radiative transfer. We adopt a flux-limited diffusion scheme justified by the high opacity of most of the disk. The…

The high rate of planet detection among solar-type stars argues that planet formation is common. It is also generally assumed that planets form in protoplanetary discs like those observed in nearby star forming regions. On what timescale…

We use published optical spectral and IR excess data from nine young clusters and associations to study the stellar mass dependent dispersal of circumstellar disks. All clusters older than ~3 Myr show a decrease in disk fraction with…

We present a statistical study of the post-formation migration of giant planets in a range of initial disk conditions. For given initial conditions we model the evolution of giant planet orbits under the influence of disk, stellar, and mass…

According to the sequential accretion model, giant planet formation is based first on the formation of a solid core which, when massive enough, can gravitationally bind gas from the nebula to form the envelope. In order to trigger the…

Transitional disks are protoplanetary disk around young stars that display inner holes in the dust distribution within a few AU, which is accompanied nevertheless by some gas accretion onto the central star. These cavities could possibly be…

It is often argued that gravitational instability of realistic protoplanetary discs is only possible at distances larger than $\sim 50$ au from the central star, requiring high disc masses and accretion rates, and that therefore disc…