Related papers: Outer solar system possibly shaped by a stellar fl…
The young star AB Aurigae is surrounded by a complex combination of gas-rich and dust dominated structures. The inner disk which has not been studied previously at sufficient resolution and imaging dynamic range seems to contain very little…
Exoplanetary systems are found not only among single stars, but also binaries of widely varying parameters. Binaries with separations of 100--1000 au are prevalent in the Solar neighborhood; at these separations planet formation around a…
The dominant mechanism for generating free-floating planets has so far remained elusive. One suggested mechanism is that planets are ejected from planetary systems due to planet-planet interactions. However, instability around a single star…
Reconstructions of the paleoclimate indicate that ancient climatic fluctuations on Earth are often correlated with variations in its orbital elements. However, the chaos inherent in the solar system's orbital evolution prevents numerical…
The inner solar system possesses a unique orbital structure in which there are no planets inside the Mercury orbit and the mass is concentrated around the Venus and Earth orbits. The origins of these features still remain unclear. We…
We consider trends resulting from two formation mechanisms for short-period super-Earths: planet-planet scattering and migration. We model scenarios where these planets originate near the snow line in ``cold finger'' circumstellar disks.…
In recent years, evidence has been obtained that in the outer region of the Solar System (in the inner part of the Oort cloud), at a distance $\sim300-700$ AU from the Sun, there may be a captured planet or a primordial black hole. In this…
Planets of 1-4 times Earth's size on orbits shorter than 100 days exist around 30-50% of all Sun-like stars. In fact, the Solar System is particularly outstanding in its lack of "hot super-Earths" (or "mini-Neptunes"). These planets -- or…
Many studies have found that neutron star mergers leave a fraction of the stars' mass in bound orbits surrounding the resulting massive neutron star or black hole. This mass is a site of $r-$ process nucleosynthesis and can generate a wind…
Discoveries of exoplanets orbiting evolved stars motivate critical examinations of the dynamics of $N$-body systems with mass loss. Multi-planet evolved systems are particularly complex because of the mutual interactions between the…
The nearly circular (mean eccentricity <e>~0.06) and coplanar (mean mutual inclination <i>~3 deg) orbits of the Solar System planets motivated Kant and Laplace to put forth the hypothesis that planets are formed in disks, which has…
Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
We describe calculations of the evolution of an ensemble of small planetesimals in the outer solar system. In a solar nebula with a mass of several times the Minimum Mass Solar Nebula, objects with radii of 100-1000 km can form on…
We conduct gas and dust hydrodynamical simulations of protoplanetary discs with one and two embedded planets to determine the impact that a second planet located further out in the disc has on the potential for subsequent planet formation…
In the late stages of accretion leading up to the formation of planetesimals, particles grew to pebbles the size of 1-mm to tens of cm. That is the same size range that dominates the present-day comet mass loss. Meteoroids that size cause…
How multiple close-in super-Earths form around stars with masses lower than that of the Sun is still an open issue. Several recent modeling studies have focused on planet formation around M-dwarf stars, but so far no studies have focused…
There is evidence that exoplanet systems display intra-system uniformity in mass, radius, and orbital spacing (like ``peas in a pod'') when compared with the system-to-system variations of planetary systems. This has been interpreted as the…
Since planet occurrence and primordial atmospheric retention probability increase with period, the occurrence-weighted median planets discovered by transit surveys may bear little resemblance to the low-occurrence, short-period planets…
The destiny of planetary systems through the late evolution of their host stars is very uncertain. We report a metal-rich gas disk around a moderately hot and young white dwarf. A dynamical model of the double-peaked emission lines…