Related papers: Inside-Out Planet Formation. V. Structure of the I…
We present numerical simulations of terrestrial planet formation that examine the growth continuously from planetesimals to planets in the inner Solar System. Previous studies show that the growth will be inside-out, but it is still common…
Giant planet formation in the core accretion (CA) paradigm is predicated by the formation of a core, assembled by the coagulation of grains and later by planetesimals within a protoplanetary disc. In contrast, in the disc instability…
The recent discoveries of massive planets on ultra-wide orbits of HR 8799 (Marois et al. 2008) and Fomalhaut (Kalas et al. 2008) present a new challenge for planet formation theorists. Our goal is to figure out which of three giant planet…
The existence of planets born in environments highly perturbed by a stellar companion represents a major challenge to the paradigm of planet formation. In numerical simulations, the presence of a close binary companion stirs up the relative…
In this paper, we calculate simulated scattered light images of a circumstellar disk in which a planet is forming by gravitational instability. The simulated images bear no correlation to the vertically integrated surface density of the…
The radial transport, or drift, of dust has taken a critical role in giant planet formation theory. However, it has been challenging to identify dust drift pile ups in the hard-to-observe inner disk. We find that the IM Lup disk shows…
Disk instability is an attractive yet controversial means for the rapid formation of giant planets in our solar system and elsewhere. Recent concerns regarding the first adiabatic exponent of molecular hydrogen gas are addressed and shown…
There is growing evidence that planet formation begins early, within the $\lesssim 1$Myr Class 0/I phase, when infall dominates disk dynamics. Our goal is to determine if Class 0/I disks reach the conditions needed to form planetesimals…
How to create planetesimals from tiny dust particles in a proto-planetary disk before the dust particles spiral to the central star is one of the most challenging problems in the theory of planetary system formation. In our previous paper…
According to the canonical planet formation theory, planets form "in-situ" within a planetesimal disk via runaway and oligarchic growth. This theory, however, cannot naturally account for the formation timescale of ice giants or the…
We use vertically-resolved numerical hydrodynamic simulations to study star formation and the interstellar medium (ISM) in galactic disks. We focus on outer disk regions where diffuse HI dominates, with gas surface densities Sigma_SFR=3-20…
Super Earths are the largest population of exoplanets and are seen to exhibit a rich diversity of compositions as inferred through their mean densities. Here we present a model that combines equilibrium chemistry in evolving disks with core…
The vast majority of young stars hosting planet-forming disks exist within clustered environments, like the Orion Nebula, implying that seemingly `extreme' UV environments (10^4 G_0 and above) are not so atypical in the context of planet…
Planets are thought to form via accretion from a remnant disk of gas and solids around a newly formed star. During this process material in the disk either remains bound to the star as part of either a planet, a smaller celestial body, or…
In the context of star and planet formation, understanding the formation of disks is of fundamental importance. Previous studies found that the magnetic field has a very strong impact on the collapse of a prestellar cloud, particularly in…
Planets form in disks around young stars. Interactions with these disks cause them to migrate and thus affect their final orbital periods. We suggest that the connection between planets and disks may be deeper and involve a symbiotic…
Stars form when filaments and dense cores in molecular clouds fragment and collapse due to self-gravity. In the most basic analyses of gravitational stability, the competition between self-gravity and thermal pressure sets the critical…
We estimate the maximum temperature at which planets can form via gravitational instability (GI) in the outskirts of early circumstellar disks. We show that due to the temperature floor set by the cosmic microwave background, there is a…
We study global star formation thresholds in the outer parts of galaxies by investigating the stability of disk galaxies embedded in dark halos. The disks are self-gravitating, contain metals and dust, and are exposed to UV radiation. We…
Like their lower mass siblings, massive protostars can be expected to: a) be surrounded by circumstellar disks and b) launch magnetically-driven jets and outflows. The disk formation and global evolution is thereby controlled by advection…