Related papers: Dynamical Evolution of the Early Solar System
In this review, three major changes in our understanding of the early history of the Solar System are presented. 1) Early differentiation: A few recent results support the idea that protoplanet formation and differentiation occurred partly…
We use the current orbital structure of large (>50km) asteroids in the main asteroid belt to constrain the evolution of the giant planets when they migrated from their primordial orbits to their current ones. Minton & Malhotra (2009) showed…
The small bodies in the Kuiper Belt region of the distant Solar System are leftovers from planet formation. Their orbital distribution today tells us about how giant planets migrated, while their surface properties, shapes, and sizes tell…
Tidal effects arise from differential and inelastic deformation of a planet by a perturbing body. The continuous action of tides modify the rotation of the planet together with its orbit until an equilibrium situation is reached. It is…
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…
In the past two decades, transit surveys have revealed a class of planets with thick atmospheres -- sub-Neptunes -- that must have completed their accretion in protoplanet disks. When planets form in the gaseous disk, the gravitational…
The orbit of Mercury has large values of eccentricity and inclination that cannot be easily explained if this planet formed on a circular and coplanar orbit. Here, we study the evolution of Mercury's orbit during the instability related to…
Our Solar system is almost entirely devoid of material interior to Mercury's orbit, in sharp contrast to the multiple Earth masses of material commonly residing within the analogous region of extrasolar planetary systems. Recent work has…
We investigate the secular dynamics of two-planet coplanar systems evolving under mutual gravitational interactions and dissipative forces. We consider two mechanisms responsible for the planetary migration: star-planet (or…
Dynamical evolution plays a key role in shaping the current properties of star clusters and star cluster systems. A detailed understanding of the effects of evolutionary processes is essential to be able to disentangle the properties which…
In a multi-planet system, a gradual change in one planet's semi-major axis will affect the eccentricities of all the planets, as angular momentum is distributed via secular interactions. If tidal dissipation in the planet is the cause of…
The formation and early evolution of Jupiter played a pivotal role in sculpting the large-scale architecture of the solar system, intertwining the narrative of Jovian early years with the broader story of the solar system's origins. The…
Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…
Gravitational torques between a planet and gas in the protoplanetary disk result in orbital migration of the planet, and are likely to play an important role in the formation and early evolution of planetary systems. For masses comparable…
Current planet formation theories rely on initially compact orbital configurations undergoing a (possibly extended) phase of giant impacts following the dispersal of the dissipative protoplanetary disk. The orbital architectures of observed…
It is debated whether close-in giant planets can form in-situ and if not, which mechanisms are responsible for their migration. One of the observable tests for migration theories is the current value of the angle between the stellar…
Through its connection with HED meteorites, Vesta is known as one of the first bodies to have accreted and differentiated in the Solar Nebula, predating the formation of Jupiter and surviving the violent evolution of the early Solar System.…
Continued observational characterization of transiting planets that reside in close proximity to their host stars has shown that a substantial fraction of such objects posses orbits that are inclined with respect to the spin axes of their…
Transiting planets are generally close enough to their host stars that tides may govern their orbital and thermal evolution of these planets. We present calculations of the tidal evolution of recently discovered transiting planets and…
Numerical simulations show that the migration of growing planetary cores may be dominated by turbulent fluctuations in the protoplanetary disk, rather than by any mean property of the flow. We quantify the impact of this stochastic core…