Related papers: Perturbation of Compact Planetary Systems by Dista…
Planetary systems discovered by the Kepler space telescope exhibit an intriguing feature. While the period ratios of adjacent low-mass planets appear largely random, there is a significant excess of pairs that lie just wide of resonances…
The orbit eccentricities of the Solar System planets are unusually low compared to the average of known exoplanetary systems. A power law correlation has previously been found between the multiplicity of a planetary system and the orbital…
Almost half of the stellar systems in the solar neighborhood are made up of multiple stars. In multiple-star systems, planet formation is under the dynamical influence of stellar companions, and the planet occurrence rate is expected to be…
The significant orbital eccentricities of most giant extrasolar planets may have their origin in the gravitational dynamics of initially unstable multiple planet systems. In this work, we explore the dynamics of two close planets on…
Exoplanetary systems host giant planets on substantially non-circular, close-in orbits. We propose that these eccentricities arise in a phase of giant impacts, analogous to the final stage of Solar System assembly that formed Earth's Moon.…
Many exoplanets in close-in orbits are observed to have relatively high eccentricities and large stellar obliquities. We explore the possibility that these result from planet-planet scattering by studying the dynamical outcomes from a large…
Recent studies claimed that planets around the same star have similar sizes and masses and regular spacings, and that planet pairs usually show ordered sizes such that the outer planet is usually the larger one. Here I show that these…
Measures of exoplanet bulk densities indicate that small exoplanets with radius less than 3 Earth radii ($R_\oplus$) range from low-density sub-Neptunes containing volatile elements to higher density rocky planets with Earth-like or…
The non-resonant secular dynamics of compact planetary systems are modeled by a perturbing function which is usually expanded in eccentricity and absolute inclination with respect to the invariant plane. Here, the expressions are given in a…
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…
The dominant mechanism for generating free-floating planets has so far remained elusive. One suggested mechanism is that planets are ejected from planetary systems due to planet-planet interactions. However, instability around a single star…
Statistical analyses of large surveys for transiting planets such as the Kepler mission must account for systematic errors and biases. Transit detection depends not only on the planet's radius and orbital period, but also on host star…
It is shown herein that planets with eccentric orbits are more likely to transit than circularly orbiting planets with the same semimajor axis by a factor of (1-e^2)^{-1}. If the orbital parameters of discovered transiting planets are…
With planets orbiting stars, a planetary mass function should not be seen as a low-mass extension of the stellar mass function, but a proper formalism needs to take care of the fact that the statistical properties of planet populations are…
The detection of many extrasolar gas giants with high eccentricities indicates that dynamical instabilities in planetary systems are common. These instabilities can alter the orbits of gas giants as well as the orbits of terrestrial planets…
We consider dynamical effects of additional perturbative forces due to the non-point mass nature of stars and planets: effects such as quadrupolar distortion and tidal friction in the systems of exo-planets. It is shown that these forces…
In planetary systems with sufficiently small inter-planet spacing, close encounters can lead to planetary collisions/mergers or ejections. We study the spin property of the merger products of two giant planets in a statistical manner using…
We propose several descriptive measures to characterize the arrangements of planetary masses, periods, and mutual inclinations within exoplanetary systems. These measures are based in complexity theory and capture the global, system-level…
The multiple-planet systems discovered by the Kepler mission exhibit the following feature: planet pairs near first-order mean-motion resonances prefer orbits just outside the nominal resonance, while avoiding those just inside the…
Prior to the 1990s, speculations about the occurrence of planets around other stars were based only on planet formation theory, observations of circumstellar disks, and the knowledge that at least one seemingly ordinary star is the host of…