Related papers: Spin-orbit Misalignment as a Driver of the Kepler …
The {\it Kepler} mission revealed a population of compact multiple-planet systems with orbital periods shorter than a year, and occasionally even shorter than a day. By analyzing a sample of 102 {\it Kepler} and {\it K2} multi-planet…
Chaotic dynamics are expected during and after planet formation, and a leading mechanism to explain large eccentricities of gas giant exoplanets is planet-planet gravitational scattering. The same scattering has been invoked to explain…
We study orbital inclination changes associated with the precession of a disc-planet system that occurs through gravitational interaction with a binary companion on an inclined orbit. We investigate whether this scenario can account for…
Detailed observational characterization of transiting exoplanet systems has revealed that the spin-axes of massive (M > ~1.2 solar masses) stars often exhibit substantial misalignments with respect to the orbits of the planets they host.…
We report on the orbital architectures of Kepler systems having multiple planet candidates identified in the analysis of data from the first six quarters of Kepler data and reported by Batalha et al. (2013). These data show 899 transiting…
Transit times around single stars can be described well by a linear ephemeris. However, transit times in circumbinary systems are influenced both by the gravitational perturbations and the orbital phase variations of the central binary…
The distribution of spin-orbit angles for systems with wide-separation, tidally detached exoplanets offers a unique constraint on the prevalence of dynamically violent planetary evolution histories. Tidally detached planets provide a…
The discovery of giant planets orbiting close to their host stars was one of the most unexpected results of early exoplanetary science. Astronomers have since found that a significant fraction of these 'Hot Jupiters' move on orbits…
Due to fortuitous circumstances, the two giant planets around Kepler-419 have well characterized 3-D orbits. They are nearly coplanar to each other; the inner one has a large eccentricity (~0.82); and the apses of the two orbits librate…
Recent analyses of Kepler space telescope data reveal that transiting planets with orbital periods shorter than about 2-3 days are generally observed around late-type stars with rotation periods longer than about 5-10 days. We investigate…
Planet obliquity is the alignment or misalignment of a planet spin axis relative to its orbit normal. In a multiplanet system, this obliquity is a valuable signature of planet formation and evolutionary history. The young $\beta$ Pictoris…
The stellar spin orientation relative to the orbital planes of multiplanet systems are becoming accessible to observations. For example, 55 Cancri is a system composed of 5 planets orbiting a member of a stellar binary for which a projected…
The collective dynamics of objects moving through a viscous fluid is complex and counterintuitive. A key to understanding the role of nontrivial particle shape in this complexity is the interaction of a pair of sedimenting spheroids. We…
Recent works suggest that, in multiplanetary systems, a close-in exoplanet can sometimes avoid becoming tidally locked to its host star if it is captured into a secular spin-orbit resonance with a companion planet. In such a resonance, the…
Doppler planet searches revealed that many giant planets orbit close to their host star or in highly eccentric orbits. These and subsequent observations inspired new theories of planet formation that invoke gravitation interactions in…
We use simulated planetary systems to model the planet multiplicity of Kepler stars. Previous studies have underproduced single planet systems and invoked the so called Kepler dichotomy, where the planet forming ability of a Kepler star is…
We investigate the role that planet detection order plays in the Kepler planet detection pipeline. The Kepler pipeline typically detects planets in order of descending signal strength (MES). We find that the detectability of transits…
It has recently been shown that stellar clustering plays an important role in shaping the properties of planetary systems. We investigate how the multiplicity distributions and orbital periods of planetary systems depend on the 6D phase…
Through the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, several hot Jupiters have been found to exhibit spin-orbit misalignment, and even retrograde orbits. The high obliquity observed in these planets can be attributed to two primary formation mechanisms,…
Secular resonances in exoplanet systems occur when two or more planets have commensurabilities in the precession rates of their orbital elements, causing an exchange of angular momentum between them. The stellar gravitational quadrupole…