Related papers: Perturbation of Compact Planetary Systems by Dista…
The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…
The Kepler mission has discovered a large number of planetary systems. We analyze the implications of the discovered single/multi-exoplanet systems from Kepler's data. As done in previous works, we test a simple model in which the intrinsic…
The existence of giant planets on wide orbits ($\stackrel{>}{_\sim}100$AU) challenge planet formation theories; the core accretion scenario has difficulty in forming them, whereas the disc instability model forms an overabundance of them…
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…
When an extrasolar planet passes in front of its star (transits), its radius can be measured from the decrease in starlight and its orbital period from the time between transits. Multiple planets transiting the same star reveal more: period…
We study the orbital architecture of multi-planet systems detected by the Kepler transit mission using N-body simulations, focusing on the orbital spacing between adjacent planets in systems showing four or more transiting planets. We find…
Transiting circumbinary planets discovered by Kepler provide unique insight into binary star and planet formation. Several features of this new found population, for example the apparent pile-up of planets near the innermost stable orbit,…
Recent ground and space-based observations show that stars with multiple planets are common in the galaxy. Most of these observational methods are biased toward detecting large planets near to their host stars. Because of these…
The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…
We used a sample of Kepler candidate planets with orbital periods less than 200 days and radii between 1.5 and 30 Earth radii to determine the typical dynamical spacing of neighboring planets. To derive the intrinsic (i.e., free of…
We analyze the effect of companion stars on the bulk density of 29 planets orbiting 15 stars in the Kepler field. These stars have at least one stellar companion within 2", and the planets have measured masses and radii, allowing an…
Small planets ($R_{p} \leq 4 R_{\oplus}$) are divided into rocky super-Earths and gaseous sub-Neptunes separated by a radius gap, but the mechanisms that produce these distinct planet populations remain unclear. Binary stars are the only…
A large proportion of transiting planetary systems appear to possess only a single planet as opposed to multiple transiting planets. This excess of singles is indicative of significant mutual inclinations existing within a large number of…
In an era when we are charting multiple planets per system, one might wonder the extent to which "missing" (or failing to detect) a planet can skew our interpretation of the system architecture. We address this question with a simple…
We investigated the underlying architecture of planetary systems by deriving the distribution of planet multiplicity (number of planets) and the distribution of orbital inclinations based on the sample of planet candidates discovered by the…
We develop an analytic model for transit timing variations produced by orbital conjunctions between gravitationally interacting planets. If the planetary orbits have tight orbital spacing, which is a common case among the Kepler planets,…
This paper studies the effects of dynamical interactions among the planets in observed extrasolar planetary systems, including hypothetical additional bodies, with a focus on secular perturbations. These interactions cause the…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
The orbital distributions of currently observed extrasolar giant planets allow marginally stable orbits for hypothetical, terrestrial planets. In this paper, we propose that many of these systems may not have additional planets on these…
During its 5 year mission, the Kepler spacecraft has uncovered a diverse population of planetary systems with orbital configurations ranging from single-transiting planets to systems of multiple planets co-transiting the parent star. By…