Related papers: The Equilibrium Temperature of Planets in Elliptic…
We report 78 secondary eclipse depths for a sample of 36 transiting hot Jupiters observed at 3.6- and 4.5 microns using the Spitzer Space Telescope. Our eclipse results for 27 of these planets are new, and include highly irradiated worlds…
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…
Before about 500 million years ago, most probably our planet experienced temporary snowball conditions, with continental and sea ices covering a large fraction of its surface. This points to a potential bistability of Earth's climate, that…
Orbits of known extrasolar planets that are located outside the tidal circularization regions of their parent stars are often substantially eccentric. By contrast, planetary orbits in our Solar System are approximately circular, reflecting…
Warm Jupiters with orbital periods of $\approx$10-365 d represent a population of giant planets located well within the water ice line but beyond the region of tidal influence of their host star relevant for high-eccentricity tidal…
Most Neptune-mass planets in close-in orbits (orbital periods less than a few days) present nonzero eccentricity, typically around 0.15. This is somehow unexpected, as these planets undergo strong tidal dissipation that should circularize…
The orbital evolution and stability of planetary systems with interaction from the belts is studied using the standard phase-plane analysis. In addition to the fixed point which corresponds to the Keplerian orbit, there are other fixed…
A common feature in the thermodynamic analysis of homogeneous and isotropic world models is the assumption that the temperature of the fluids inside the cosmic horizon (including dark energy) coincides with the temperature of the latter,…
Robust atmospheric and radiative transfer modeling will be required to properly interpret reflected light and thermal emission spectra of terrestrial exoplanets. This will help break observational degeneracies between the numerous…
I model the effect of rapid stellar rotation on a planet's insolation. Fast-rotating stars have induced pole-to-equator temperature gradients (known as gravity-darkening) of up to several thousand Kelvin that affect the star's luminosity…
We present Spitzer Space Telescope infrared photometric time series of the transiting extrasolar planet system TrES-1. The data span a predicted time of secondary eclipse, corresponding to the passage of the planet behind the star. In both…
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…
Planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars are often assumed to be in a state of tidally synchronized rotation, which would considerably affect their putative habitability. Although thermal tides cause Venus to rotate retrogradely,…
In this paper we develop a theory of disturbances induced by the stellar tidal field in a fully convective slowly rotating planet orbiting on a highly eccentric orbit around a central star. We show that there are two contributions to the…
The eccentricity distribution of exoplanets is known from radial velocity surveys to be divergent from circular orbits beyond 0.1 AU. This is particularly the case for large planets where the radial velocity technique is most sensitive. The…
The rate of tidal circularization is predicted to be faster for relatively cool stars with convective outer layers, compared to hotter stars with radiative outer layers. Observing this effect is challenging, because it requires large and…
The anomalously large radii of strongly irradiated exoplanets have remained a major puzzle in astronomy. Based on a 2D steady state atmospheric circulation model, the validity of which is assessed by comparison to 3D calculations, we reveal…
The motion of a satellite around a planet can be studied by the Hill model, which is a modification of the restricted three body problem pertaining to motion of a satellite around a planet. Although the dynamics of the circular Hill model…
We present a systematic evaluation of the agreement between the observed radii of 90 well-characterized transiting extrasolar giant planets and their corresponding model radii. Our model radii are drawn from previously published…
The emergent spectra of close-in, giant exoplanets ("hot Jupiters") are expected to be distinct from those of self-luminous objects with similar effective temperatures because hot Jupiters are primarily heated from above by their host stars…