Related papers: Instabilities in the Early Solar System due to a S…

The dynamical architecture and compositional diversity of the asteroid belt strongly constrain planet formation models. Recent Solar System formation models have shown that the asteroid belt may have been born empty and later filled with…

We study the orbital evolution of the 4 giant planets of our solar system in a gas disk. Our investigation extends the previous works by Masset and Snellgrove (2001) and Morbidelli and Crida (2007, MC07), which focussed on the dynamics of…

Several properties of the Solar System, including the wide radial spacing of the giant planets, can be explained if planets radially migrated by exchanging orbital energy and momentum with outer disk planetesimals. Neptune's…

The canonical theory for planet formation in circumstellar disks proposes that planets are grown from initially much smaller seeds. The long-considered alternative theory proposes that giant protoplanets can be formed directly from…

We review the models and results of simulations of self-gravitating, gaseous protoplanetary disks in binary star systems. These models have been calculated by three different groups with three different computational methods, two…

For a long time, gravitational instability in the disk of planetesimals has been suspected to be the main engine responsible for the beginning of dust growth, its advantage being that it provides for rapid growth. Its real importance in…

We investigate the formation of planetesimals via the gravitational instability of solids that have settled to the midplane of a circumstellar disk. Vertical shear between the gas and a subdisk of solids induces turbulent mixing which…

We present a parameter study of the possibility of tidally triggered disk instability. Using a restricted N-body model which allows for a survey of an extended parameter space, we show that a passing dwarf star with a mass between 0.1 and 1…

Forming giant planets by disk instability requires a gaseous disk that is massive enough to become gravitationally unstable and able to cool fast enough for self-gravitating clumps to form and survive. Models with simplified disk cooling…

We use high resolution 3D SPH simulations to study the evolution of self-gravitating binary protoplanetary disks. Heating by shocks and cooling are included. We consider different orbital separations and masses of the disks and central…

The orbital architecture of the Solar System is thought to have been sculpted by a dynamical instability among the giant planets. During the instability a primordial outer disk of planetesimals was destabilized and ended up on…

Gravitational instability has been invoked as a possible mechanism of giant planet formation in protoplanetary disks. Here we critically revise its viability by noting that for the direct production of giant planets it is not enough for…

We show that small solids in low mass, turbulent protoplanetary disks collect into self-gravitating rings. Growth is faster than disk lifetimes and radial drift times for moderately strong turbulence, characterized by dimensionless…

Chiang et al. 2006, hereafter C06 have recently proposed that the observed structure of the Kuiper belt could be the result of a dynamical instability of a system of ~5 primordial ice giant planets in the outer Solar System. According to…

We test the effect of assumptions about stellar motion on the behavior of gravitational instabilities in protoplanetary disks around solar-type stars by performing two simulations that are identical in all respects except the treatment of…

Debris disks or exo-Kuiper belts, detected through their thermal or scattered emission from their dusty components, are ubiquitous around main-sequence stars. Since dust grains are short-lived, their sustained presence is thought to require…

Planetary systems form in gas-dust protoplanetary discs via the growth of solid bodies. In this paper, we show that the most intriguing stage of such growth --- namely, the transformation of 1-10 m boulders into kilometre-sized…

Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…

The process leading to the formation of the terrestrial planet remains elusive. In a previous publication, we have shown that, if the first generation of planetesimals forms in a ring at about 1 AU and the gas disk's density peaks at the…

The core-accretion mechanism for gas giant formation may be too slow to create all observed gas giant planets during reasonable gas disk lifetimes, but it has yet to be firmly established that the disk instability model can produce…