Related papers: Constraining the giant planets' initial configurat…
We carry out a series of high-resolution (1024 X 1024) hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the orbital evolution of a Saturn-Jupiter pair embedded in a gaseous disk. This work extends the results of our previous work by exploring a…
Planetary migration is one of the most serious problems to systematically understand the observations of exoplanets. We clarify that the theoretically predicted type II migration is too fast, as well as type I migration, by developing…
The observation that the orbits of long-period Kuiper Belt objects are anomalously clustered in physical space has recently prompted the Planet Nine hypothesis - the proposed existence of a distant and eccentric planetary member of our…
We fit an isothermal oscillatory density model of Neptune's protoplanetary disk to the surviving regular satellites and its innermost ring and we determine the radial scale length of the disk, the equation of state and the central density…
The disk instability (DI) model for giant planet formation remains an attractive alternative in explaining the formation of giant planets at early times, giant planets at large radial distances, and giant planets orbiting M-stars. In this…
The non-resonant Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) between the 3:2 and 2:1 Neptunian mean motion resonances can be largely divided between a cold classical belt (CCB) and a hot classical belt (HCB). A notable difference between these two…
Exoplanet observations have shown that the occurrence and orbital architectures of close-in super-Earths and sub-Neptunes are shaped by the presence of outer gas giant planets. This influence may emerge during the formation stage or from…
As many as 5 ice giants--Neptune-mass planets composed of 90% ice and rock and 10% hydrogen--are thought to form at heliocentric distances of 10-25 AU on closely packed orbits spaced ~5 Hill radii apart. Such oligarchies are ultimately…
Containing only a few percent the mass of the moon, the current asteroid belt is around three to four orders of magnitude smaller that its primordial mass inferred from disk models. Yet dynamical studies have shown that the asteroid belt…
We present the results of N--body simulations which examine the effect that gas giant planet migration has on the formation of terrestrial planets. The models incorporate a 0.5 Jupiter mass planet undergoing type II migration through an…
The outer giant planets, Uranus and Neptune, pose a challenge to theories of planet formation. They exist in a region of the Solar System where long dynamical timescales and a low primordial density of material would have conspired to make…
Axisymmetric disks of high eccentricity, low mass bodies on near-Keplerian orbits are unstable to an out-of-plane buckling. This "inclination instability" exponentially grows the orbital inclinations, raises perihelia distances and clusters…
The cold classical population of the Kuiper belt exhibits a wide variety of unique physical characteristics, which collectively suggest that its dynamical coherence has been maintained through out the solar system's lifetime.…
Planet formation is directly linked to the birthing environment that protoplanetary disks provide. The disk properties determine whether a giant planet will form and how it evolves. The number of exoplanet and disk observations is…
We present a new planetary structure/thermal evolution model, designed for use in problems that couple orbital dynamics with planetary structure. We first benchmark our structural/thermal evolution calculations against the \texttt{MESA}…
Mean motion commensurabilities in multi-planet systems are an expected outcome of protoplanetary disk-driven migration, and their relative dearth in the observational data presents an important challenge to current models of planet…
An episode of dynamical instability is thought to have sculpted the orbital structure of the outer solar system. When modeling this instability, a key constraint comes from Jupiter's fifth eccentric mode (quantified by its amplitude M55),…
Jupiter and Saturn formed in a few million years (Haisch et al. 2001) from a gas-dominated protoplanetary disk, and were susceptible to gas-driven migration of their orbits on timescales of only ~100,000 years (Armitage 2007). Hydrodynamic…
The migration of Neptune's resonances through the proto-Kuiper belt has been imprinted in the distribution of small bodies in the outer Solar System. Here we analyze five published Neptune migration models in detail, focusing on the high…
Planetesimal formation is still mysterious. One of the ways to form planetesimals is to invoke a gas pressure bump in a protoplanetary disc. In our previous paper, we propose a new scenario in which the piled-up dust at a gas pressure bump…