Related papers: Imaging Giant Protoplanets with the ELTs
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
Protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planets, commonly feature bright rings and dark gaps in both continuum and line emission maps. Accreting planets are interacting with the disk, not only through gravity, but also by changing the…
A first characterization of many exoplanets has recently been achieved by the observational determination of their radius. For some planets, a measurement of the luminosity has also been possible, with many more directly imaged planets…
The formation of a circumplanetary disk and accretion of angular momentum onto a protoplanetary system are investigated using 3D hydrodynamical simulations. The local region around a protoplanet in a protoplanetary disk is considered with…
We explore the appearance of terrestrial planets in formation by studying the emergent spectra of hot molten protoplanets during their collisional formation. While such collisions are rare, the surfaces of these bodies may remain hot at…
The connection between the atmospheric composition of giant planets and their origin remains elusive. In this study, we explore how convective mixing can link the primordial planetary state to its atmospheric composition. We simulate the…
Recent observations of protoplanetary disks have revealed ring-like structures that can be associated to pressure maxima. Pressure maxima are known to be dust collectors and planet migration traps. Most of planet formation works are based…
The formation of planets depends on the underlying protoplanetary disc structure, which influences both the accretion and migration rates of embedded planets. The disc itself evolves on time-scales of several Myr during which both…
We develop a semi-analytic model for planet formation during the pre-main sequence contraction phase of a low mass star. During this evolution, the stellar magnetosphere maintains a fixed ratio between the inner disk radius and the stellar…
Searches for young gas giant planets at wide separations have so far focused on techniques appropriate for compact (Jupiter sized) planets. Here we point out that protoplanets born through Gravitational Instability (GI) may remain in an…
Observational studies show that the probability of finding gas giant planets around a star increases with the star's metallicity. Our latest simulations of disks undergoing gravitational instabilities (GIs) with realistic radiative cooling…
The formation of planets is one of the major unsolved problems in modern astrophysics. Planets are believed to form out of the material in circumstellar disks known to exist around young stars, and which are a by-product of the star…
Understanding how dust evolves in protoplanetary disks is crucial to constraining the initial conditions of planet formation. The apparent "mass budget problem", which stems from the comparison of the observed disk masses to the ones…
One of the most challenging problems we face in our understanding of planet formation is how Jupiter and Saturn could have formed before the the solar nebula dispersed. The most popular model of giant planet formation is the so-called 'core…
Planned astronomical observatories of the 2020s will be capable of obtaining reflected light photometry and spectroscopy of cool extrasolar giant planets. Here we explain that such data are valuable both for understanding the origin and…
Exoplanets number in their thousands, and the number is ever increasing with the advent of new surveys and improved instrumentation. One of the most surprising things we have learnt from these discoveries is not that small-rocky planets in…
Giant planets have been discovered at large separations from the central star. Moreover, a striking number of young circumstellar disks have gas and/or dust gaps at large orbital separations, potentially driven by embedded planetary…
There are two planetary formation scenarios: core accretion and gravitational disk instability. Based on the fact that gaseous objects are preferentially observed around metal-rich host stars, most extra-solar gaseous objects discovered to…
A model for massive stars is constructed by piecing together evolutionary algorithms for the protostellar structure, the environment, the inflow and the radiation feedback. We investigate specified accretion histories of constant,…
Protoplanets of Super-Earth sizes may get trapped in convergence zones for planetary migration and form gas giants there. These growing planets undergo accretion heating, which triggers a hot-trail effect that can reverse migration…