Related papers: Exoplanet Orbital Eccentricities Derived From LAMO…
The observed extrasolar planets possess both large masses (with a median M sin i of 1.65 MJ) and a wide range in orbital eccentricity (0 < e < 0.94). As planets are thought to form in circumstellar disks, one important question in planet…
The hundreds of multiple planetary systems discovered by the \textit{Kepler} mission are typically observed to reside in close-in ($\lesssim0.5$ AU), low-eccentricity, and low-inclination orbits. We run N-body experiments to study the…
Over a hundred rocky planets orbiting Sun-like stars in very short orbital periods (<1 day) have been discovered by the Kepler mission. These planets, known as ultra-short-period (USP) planets, are unlikely to have attained their orbits in…
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 Kepler space mission discovered about a dozen planets orbiting around binary stars systems. Most of these circumbinary planets lie near their instability boundaries at about 3 to 5 binary separations. Past attempts to match these final…
The Kepler space mission has detected a large number of exoplanets in multiple transiting planet systems. Previous studies found that these Kepler multiple planet systems exhibit an intra-system uniformity, namely planets in the same system…
Small planets, 1-4x the size of Earth, are extremely common around Sun-like stars, and surprisingly so, as they are missing in our solar system. Recent detections have yielded enough information about this class of exoplanets to begin…
Measuring precise planet masses, densities, and orbital dynamics in individual planetary systems is an important pathway toward understanding planet formation. The WASP-47 system has an unusual architecture that motivates a complex…
The first discovered extrasolar worlds -- giant, ``hot Jupiter'' planets on short-period orbits -- came as a surprise to solar-system-centric models of planet formation, prompting the development of new theories for planetary system…
The Kepler survey provides a statistical census of planetary systems out to the habitable zone. Because most planets are non-transiting, orbital architectures are best estimated using simulated observations of ensemble populations. Here, we…
Observations of exoplanets have revealed that systems with planets on closely-spaced orbits are common, which motivates the question "How closely can planets orbit to one another and still be dynamically-stable for very long times?". To…
Observations of the population of cold Jupiter planets ($r>$1 AU) show that nearly all of these planets orbit their host star on eccentric orbits. For planets up to a few Jupiter masses, eccentric orbits are thought to be the outcome of…
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…
Numerous telescopes and techniques have been used to find and study extrasolar planets, but none has been more successful than NASA's Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler has discovered the majority of known exoplanets, the smallest planets to…
Since the discovery of the first extrasolar giant planets around Sun-like stars, evolving observational capabilities have brought us closer to the detection of true Earth analogues. The size of an exoplanet can be determined when it…
The orbital eccentricities of directly imaged exoplanets and brown dwarf companions provide clues about their formation and dynamical histories. We combine new high-contrast imaging observations of substellar companions obtained primarily…
Kepler has identified over 600 multiplanet systems, many of which have several planets with orbital distances smaller than that of Mercury -- quite different from the Solar System. Because these systems may be difficult to explain in the…
In the Solar system the planets' compositions vary with orbital distance, with rocky planets in close orbits and lower-density gas giants in wider orbits. The detection of close-in giant planets around other stars was the first clue that…
Outer satellites of the planets have distant, eccentric orbits that can be highly inclined or even retrograde relative to the equatorial planes of their planets. These irregular orbits cannot have formed by circumplanetary accretion and are…
The field of exoplanetary science has experienced a recent surge of new systems that is largely due to the precision photometry provided by the Kepler mission. The latest discoveries have included compact planetary systems in which the…