Related papers: Constraining the giant planets' initial configurat…
Modeling the formation of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune is a long-lasting problem in planetary science. Due to gas-drag, collisional damping, and resonant shepherding, the planetary embryos repel the planetesimals away from their reach…
The existence of extrasolar planets with short orbital periods suggests that planetary migration induced by tidal interaction with the protoplanetary disk is important. Cores and terrestrial planets may undergo migration as they form. In…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…
The consistency of planet formation models suffers from the disconnection between the regime of small and large bodies. This is primarily caused by so-called growth barriers: the direct growth of larger bodies is halted at centimetre-sized…
Multiple planets undergoing disk migration may be captured into a chain of mean-motion resonances with the innermost planet parked near the disk's inner edge. Subsequent dynamical evolution may disrupt these resonances, leading to the…
The observational census of trans-Neptunian objects with semi-major axes greater than ~250 AU exhibits unexpected orbital structure that is most readily attributed to gravitational perturbations induced by a yet-undetected, massive planet.…
Recent study suggests that the streaming instability, one of the leading mechanisms for driving the formation of planetesimals, may not be as efficient as previously thought. Under some disc conditions, the growth timescale of the…
The orbital distribution of transneptunian objects (TNOs) in the distant Kuiper Belt (with semimajor axes beyond the 2:1 resonance, roughly $a$=50-100 au) provides constraints on the dynamical history of the outer solar system. Recent…
We explore a simplified model of the outcome of an early outer Solar System gravitational upheaval during which objects were captured into Neptune's 3:2 mean motion resonance via scattering rather than smooth planetary migration. We use…
Migration is a key ingredient for the formation of close-in super-Earth and mini-Neptune systems, as it sets in which resonances planets can be trapped. Slower migration rates result in wider resonance configurations compared to higher…
The asteroid belt is characterized by an extreme low total mass of material on dynamically excited orbits. The Nice Model explains many peculiar qualities of the solar system, including the belt's excited state, by invoking an orbital…
Observations support the hypothesis that gas disk gravitational instability might explain the formation of massive or wide-orbit gas giant exoplanets. The situation with regard to Jupiter-mass exoplanets orbiting within $\sim$ 20 au is more…
A planet orbiting in a disk of planetesimals can experience an instability in which it migrates to smaller orbital radii. Resonant interactions between the planet and planetesimals remove angular momentum from the planetesimals, increasing…
Neptune's dynamical history shaped the current orbits of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs), leaving clues to the planet's orbital evolution. In the "classical" region, a population of dynamically "hot" high-inclination KBOs overlies a flat "cold"…
The majority of the discovered transiting circumbinary planets are located very near the innermost stable orbits permitted, raising questions about the origins of planets in such perturbed environments. Most favored formation scenarios…
Chiang et al. 2006, hereafter C06 have recently proposed that the observed structure of the Kuiper belt could be the result of a dynamical instability of a system of ~5 primordial ice giant planets in the outer Solar System. According to…
The core accretion theory of planet formation has at least two fundamental problems explaining the origins of Uranus and Neptune: (1) dynamical times in the trans-Saturnian solar nebula are so long that core growth can take > 15 Myr, and…
Over the last decade, evidence has mounted that the solar system's observed state can be favorably reproduced in the context of an instability-driven dynamical evolution model, such as the "Nice" model. To date, all successful realizations…
We investigate orbital resonances expected to arise when a system of two planets, with masses in the range 1-4 Earth masses, undergoes convergent migration while embedded in a section of gaseous disc where the flow is laminar. We consider…
Born as ice-rich planetesimals, cometary nuclei were gravitationally scattered onto their current orbits in the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud during the giant planets' dynamical instability in the early stages of our Solar System's…