Related papers: Selective Aggregation Experiments on Planetesimal …
Core accretion is the standard scenario of planet formation, wherein planets are formed by sequential accretion of gas and solids, and is widely used to interpret exoplanet observations. However, no direct probes of the scenario have been…
The exoplanet mass radius diagram reveals that super Earths display a wide range of radii, and therefore mean densities, at a given mass. Using planet population synthesis models, we explore the key physical factors that shape this…
As part of a national scientific network 'Pathways to Habitability' the formation of planets and the delivery of water onto these planets is a key question as water is essential for the development of life. In the first part of the paper we…
Most of our current understanding of the planet formation mechanism is based on the planet metallicity correlation derived mostly from solar-type stars harbouring gas-giant planets. To achieve a far more reaching grasp on the substellar…
Most detected planet-bearing binaries are in wide orbits, for which a high inclination, $i_B$, between the binary orbital plane and the plane of the planetary disk around the primary is likely to be common. In this paper, we investigate the…
Spurred by the discovery of numerous exoplanets in multiple systems, binaries have become in recent years one of the main topics in planet formation research. Numerous studies have investigated to what extent the presence of a stellar…
Understanding the physical structure of the planet formation environment, the protoplanetary disk, is essential for the interpretation of high resolution observations of the dust and future observations of the magnetic field structure.…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
Interior compositions are key for our understanding of Earth-like exoplanets. The composition of the core can influence the presence of a magnetic dynamo and the strength of gravity on the planetary surface, both of which heavily impact…
In the classical core-accretion planet formation scenario, rapid inward migration and accretion timescales of kilometer size planetesimals may not favor the formation of massive cores of giant planets before the dissipation of…
Several planets have recently been discovered around old metal-poor stars, implying that these planets are also old, formed in the early Universe. The canonical theory suggests that the conditions for their formation could not have existed…
We show that the assembly of the Solar System terrestrial planets can be successfully modelled with all of the mass initially confined to a narrow annulus between 0.7 and 1.0 AU. With this configuration, analogues of Mercury and Mars often…
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…
Forming planetary systems are populated by large numbers of gravitationally interacting planetary bodies, spanning from massive giant planets to small planetesimals akin to present-day asteroids and comets. All these planetary bodies are…
We present models for the formation of terrestrial planets, and the collisional evolution of debris disks, in planetary systems that contain multiple unstable gas giants. We previously showed that the dynamics of the giant planets…
As the number of planetary mass objects (PMOs, $\lessapprox$13 M$_{\rm{Jupiter}}$) at wider separation ($\gtrapprox$10 AU) grows, there is emerging evidence that they form differently from their higher-mass brown-dwarf (BD) counterparts.…
Because of the high energies involved, giant impacts that occur during planetary accretion cause large degrees of melting. The depth of melting in the target body after each collision determines the pressure and temperature conditions of…
Recent observations by the {\it Kepler} space telescope have led to the discovery of more than 4000 exoplanet candidates consisting of many systems with Earth- to Neptune-sized objects that reside well inside the orbit of Mercury, around…
Constraining planet formation based on the atmospheric composition of exoplanets is a fundamental goal of the exoplanet community. Existing studies commonly try to constrain atmospheric abundances, or to analyze what abundance patterns a…
The evolution of gravitationally unstable protoplanetary gaseous disks has been studied with the use of three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations with unprecedented resolution. We have considered disks with initial…