Related papers: Extended Transiting Disks and Rings Around Planets…
Large dips in the brightness for a number of stars have been observed, for which the tentative explanation is occultation of the star by a transiting circumplanetary disk or ring system. In order for the circumplanetary disk/rings to block…
Several tens of white dwarfs are known to host circumstellar discs of dusty debris, thought to arise from the tidal disruption of rocky bodies originating in the star's remnant planetary system. This paper investigates the evolution of such…
Several recent studies have suggested that circumstellar disks in young stellar binaries may be driven into misalignement with their host stars due to secular gravitational interactions between the star, disk and the binary companion. The…
Recent observations of several protoplanetary discs have found evidence of departures from flat, circular motion in the inner regions of the disc. One possible explanation for these observations is a disc warp, which could be induced by a…
Circumstellar disks of planetary debris are now known or suspected to closely orbit hundreds of white dwarf stars. To date, both data and theory support disks that are entirely contained within the preceding giant stellar radii, and hence…
We present some results from a systematic survey for disks around spectroscopically identified young brown dwarfs and very low mass stars. We find that ~75% of our sample show intrinsic IR excesses, indicative of circum(sub)stellar disks.…
We have completed a systematic survey for disks around young brown dwarfs and very low mass stars. By choosing a well-defined sample and by obtaining sensitive thermal IR observations, we can make an unbiased measurement of the disk…
We study a warping instability of a geometrically thin, non-self-gravitating, circumbinary disk around young binary stars on an eccentric orbit. Such a disk is subject to both the tidal torques due to a time-dependent binary potential and…
Magnetic interactions between a protostar and its accretion disc tend to induce warping in the disc and produce secular changes in the stellar spin direction, so that the spin axis may not always be perpendicular to the disc. This may help…
Nearly all known white dwarf planetary systems contain detectable rocky debris in the stellar photosphere. A glaring exception is the young and still evolving white dwarf WD J0914+1914, which instead harbours a giant planet and a disc of…
Planetary systems commonly survive the evolution of single stars, as evidenced by terrestrial-like planetesimal debris observed orbiting and polluting the surfaces of white dwarfs. This letter reports the identification of a circumbinary…
A significant fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) host dust/debris disks formed from the tidal disruption of asteroids and planetesimals. Several studies indicate that the disks can attain significant vertical heights through collisional…
Do white dwarfs host asteroid systems? Although several lines of argument suggest that white dwarfs may be orbited by large populations of asteroids, transits would provide the most direct evidence. We demonstrate that the Kepler mission…
We present observations of a circumstellar disk that is inclined close to edge-on around a young brown dwarf in the Taurus star-forming region. Using data obtained with SpeX at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, we find that the slope of…
Divergent migration of planets within a viscous circumstellar disk can engender resonance crossings and dramatic excitation of orbital eccentricities. We provide quantitative criteria for the viability of this mechanism. For the orbits of…
The classical Laplace surface defines the location of circular particle orbits that do not undergo nodal precession around a planet with some obliquity. Close to the planet the surface coincides with the equator of the planet, while far…
25%-50% of all white dwarfs (WDs) host observable and dynamically active remnant planetary systems based on the presence of close-in circumstellar dust and gas and photospheric metal pollution. Currently-accepted theoretical explanations…
Astrophysical discs are often warped, that is, their orbital planes change with radius. This occurs whenever there is a non-axisymmetric force acting on the disc, for example the Lense-Thirring precession induced by a misaligned spinning…
Warped accretion discs are expected in many protostellar binary systems. In this paper, we study the long-term evolution of disc warp and precession for discs with dimensionless thickness $H/r$ larger than their viscosity parameter…
We quantify the systematic impact of the non-spherical shape of transiting planets and brown dwarfs, due to tidal forces and rotation, on the observed transit depth. Such a departure from sphericity leads to a bias in the derivation of the…