Related papers: Dynamical instability and its implications for pla…
The distribution of small planet radius ($<$4 R$_\oplus$) is an indicator of the underlying processes governing planet formation and evolution. We investigate the correlation between the radius distribution of exoplanets in \textit{Kepler}…
Studies of high-multiplicity, tightly-packed planetary systems suggest that dynamical instabilities are common and affect both the orbits and planet structures, where the compact orbits and typically low densities make physical collisions…
We investigated the underlying architecture of planetary systems by deriving the distribution of planet multiplicity (number of planets) and the distribution of orbital inclinations based on the sample of planet candidates discovered by the…
Many extrasolar planetary systems containing multiple super-Earths have been discovered. N-body simulations taking into account standard type-I planetary migration suggest that protoplanets are captured into mean-motion resonant orbits near…
Mean motion commensurabilities in multi-planet systems are an expected outcome of protoplanetary disk-driven migration, and their relative dearth in the observational data presents an important challenge to current models of planet…
The search for satellites around exoplanets represents one of the greatest challenges in advancing the characterization of planetary systems. Currently, we can only detect massive satellites, which resemble additional planetary companions…
Many Kepler multiplanet systems have planet pairs near low-order, mean-motion resonances. In addition, many Kepler multiplanet systems have planets with orbital periods less than a few days. With the exception of Kepler-42, however, there…
Planets have been observed in tight binary systems with separations less than 20 AU. A likely formation scenario for such systems involves a dynamical capture, after which high relative inclinations are likely and may lead to Kozai…
The efficiency of tidal dissipation provides a zeroth-order link to a planet's physical properties. For super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets in the range $R_{\oplus}\lesssim R_p \lesssim 4 R_{\oplus}$, particularly efficient dissipation…
Accretion disks in binary systems can exhibit a tilt instability, arising from the interaction between components of the tidal potential and dissipation. Using a linear analysis, we show that the aspect ratios and outer radii of…
The dynamics of systems of two and three planets, initially placed on circular and nearly coplanar orbits, is explored in the proximity of their stability limit. The evolution of a large number of systems is numerically computed and their…
Current observations indicate that the planet formation process often produces multiple planet systems with nearly circular orbits, regular spacing, a narrow range of inclination angles, and similar planetary masses of order $m_{\rm…
Among $\sim 160$ of the multiple exoplanetary systems confirmed, about $30\%$ of them have neighboring pairs with a period ratio $\leq 2$. A significant fraction of these pairs are around mean motion resonance (MMR), more interestingly,…
We show that interaction with a gas disk may produce young planetary systems with closely-spaced orbits, stabilized by mean-motion resonances between neighbors. On longer timescales, after the gas is gone, interaction with a remnant…
In the coming years, high contrast imaging surveys are expected to reveal the characteristics of the population of wide-orbit, massive, exoplanets. To date, a handful of wide planetary mass companions are known, but only one such…
The exotic range of known planetary systems has provoked an equally exotic range of physical explanations for their diverse architectures. However, constraining formation processes requires mapping the observed exoplanet population to that…
We present a Monte Carlo model for the structure of low mass (total mass < 25 earth mass) planetary systems that form by the in situ gravitational assembly of planetary embryos into final planets. Our model includes distributions of mass,…
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…
The planet candidates discovered by the Kepler mission provide a rich sample to constrain the architectures and relative inclinations of planetary systems within approximately 0.5 AU of their host stars. We use the triple-transit systems…
Cold Neptunes and sub-Neptunes are among the most common products of planet formation and likely dominate the angular-momentum budgets in most planetary systems, yet their dynamical impact on planetary architectures remains poorly…