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In recent years several planets have been discovered at wide orbits (>100 AU) around their host stars. Theoretical studies encounter difficulties in explaining their formation and origin. Here we propose a novel scenario for the production…
The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about…
Transiting planets around rapidly rotating stars are not amenable to precise radial velocity observations, such as are used for planet candidate validation, as they have wide, rotationally broadened stellar lines. Such planets can, however,…
We investigate the spin state of a protoplanet during the pebble accretion influenced by the gas flow in the gravitational potential of the protoplanet and how it depends on the planetary mass, the headwind speed, the distance from the host…
Several processes can cause the shape of an extrasolar giant planet's shadow, as viewed in transit, to depart from circular. In addition to rotational effects, cloud formation, non-homogenous haze production and movement, and dynamical…
The inclination distribution of circumbinary planets (CBPs) is an important scientific issue. It is of great significance in estimating the occurrence rate of CBPs and studying their formation and evolution. Although the CBPs currently…
Spectroscopic follow-up of dozens of transiting planets has revealed the degree of alignment between the equators of stars and the orbits of the planets they host. Here we determine a method, applicable to spotted stars, that can reveal the…
The large number of exoplanets found to orbit their host stars in very close orbits have significantly advanced our understanding of the planetary formation process. It is now widely accepted that such short-period planets cannot have…
We have investigated the dependence of the prograde/retrograde temporary capture of asteroids by a planet on their original heliocentric semimajor axes through analytical arguments and numerical orbital integrations in order to discuss the…
We investigate, by means of numerical simulations, the possibility of forming counter-rotating old stellar components by major mergers between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy. We show that counter-rotation can appear both in dissipative…
Most extrasolar planets currently known were discovered by means of an indirect method that measures the stellar wobble caused by the planet. We previously studied a triple system composed of a star and a nearby binary on circular coplanar…
Asteroids, planets, stars in some open clusters, as well as molecular clouds appear to possess a preferential spin-orbit alignment, pointing to shared processes that tie their rotation at birth to larger parent structures. We present a new…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
Recent advances in sub-millimeter observations of young circumstellar nebulae have opened an unprecedented window into the structure of protoplanetary disks, which has revealed the surprising ubiquity of broken and misaligned disks. In this…
We develop a simple model of planetary formation, focusing our attention on those planets with masses less than 10 Earth masses and studying particularly the primordial spin parameters of planets resulting from the accretion of…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
Several studies have shown that the occultation of stellar active regions by the transiting planet can generate anomalies in the high-precision transit light curves, and these anomalies may lead to an inaccurate estimate of the planetary…
The Einstein rings and proper motions of nearby stars tend to be large. Thus, every year some foreground stars within a few hundred parsecs of Earth induce gravitational lensing events in background stars. In some of these cases, the events…
Observations of hierarchical triple star systems show that misalignments are common both between the angular momentum vector of the inner binary and the outer companion orbit, and between the outer binary orbit and a circumtriple gas disk.…
Chaotic dynamics are expected during and after planet formation, and a leading mechanism to explain large eccentricities of gas giant exoplanets is planet-planet gravitational scattering. The same scattering has been invoked to explain…