Related papers: Dynamics and Collisional Evolution of Closely Pack…
The dynamical history of a planetary system is recorded in the present day architecture of its constituent planets' sizes, orbital periods, and eccentricities. Studying the relationships between these quantities for large populations…
The dynamical stability of tightly packed exoplanetary systems remains poorly understood. While for a two-planet system a sharp stability boundary exists, numerical simulations of three and more planet systems show that they can experience…
Eighty planetary systems of two or more planets are known to orbit stars other than the Sun. For most, the data can be sufficiently explained by non-interacting Keplerian orbits, so the dynamical interactions of these systems have not been…
A large proportion of transiting planetary systems appear to possess only a single planet as opposed to multiple transiting planets. This excess of singles is indicative of significant mutual inclinations existing within a large number of…
Radial velocity (RV) measurements of transiting multiplanet systems allow us to understand the densities and compositions of planets unlike those in the Solar System. Kepler-102, which consists of 5 tightly packed transiting planets, is a…
We study the interaction of a proto-planetary disk and a planet on a highly inclined orbit in the linear regime. The evolution of the planet is dominated by dynamical friction for planet masses above several Earth-masses. Smaller planets…
Planets orbiting intermediate and low-mass stars are in jeopardy as their stellar hosts evolve to white dwarfs (WDs) because the dynamics of the planetary system changes due to the increase of the planet:star mass ratio after stellar…
Motivated by the large number of compact extrasolar planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Mission, this paper considers perturbations due to possible additional outer planets. The discovered compact systems sometimes contain multiple…
Recent ground and space-based observations show that stars with multiple planets are common in the galaxy. Most of these observational methods are biased toward detecting large planets near to their host stars. Because of these…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…
The ubiquity of planets and diversity of planetary systems reveal planet formation encompass many complex and competing processes. In this series of papers, we develop and upgrade a population synthesis model as a tool to identify the…
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…
Context: Numerous theoretical studies of the stellar dynamics of triple systems have been carried out, but fewer purely empirical studies that have addressed planetary orbits within these systems. Most of these empirical studies have been…
As a direct result of ongoing efforts to detect more exoplanetary systems, an ever-increasing number of multiple-planet systems are being announced. But how many of these systems are truly what they seem? In many cases, such systems are…
Resonant chains are groups of planets for which each pair is in resonance, with an orbital period ratio locked at a rational value (2/1, 3/2, etc.). Such chains naturally form as a result of convergent migration of the planets in the…
At least 10-15% of nearby sun-like stars have known Jupiter-mass planets. In contrast, very few planets are found in mature open and globular clusters such as the Hyades and 47 Tuc. We explore here the possibility that this dichotomy is due…
This study employs numerical simulations to explore the relationship between the dynamical instability of planetary systems and the uniformity of planetary masses within the system, quantified by the Gini index. Our findings reveal a…
The Kepler-11 planetary system contains six transiting planets ranging in size from 1.8 to 4.2 times the radius of Earth. Five of these planets orbit in a tightly-packed configuration with periods between 10 and 47 days. We perform a…
This chapter concerns the long-term dynamical evolution of planetary systems from both theoretical and observational perspectives. We begin by discussing the planet-planet interactions that take place within our own Solar System. We then…
The Kepler planet candidates are an interesting testbed for planet formation scenarios. We present results from N-body simulations of multi-planetary systems that resemble those observed by Kepler. We add both smooth (Type I/II) and…