Related papers: Worlds in Migration
In a planetary system with two or more well-spaced, eccentric, inclined planets, secular interactions may lead to chaos. The innermost planet may gradually become very eccentric and/or inclined, as a result of the secular degrees of freedom…
We analyze data from the Quarter 1-17 Data Release 24 (Q1--Q17 DR24) planet candidate catalog from NASA's Kepler mission, specifically comparing systems with single transiting planets to systems with multiple transiting planets, and…
Secular perturbations from binary stars and distant massive planets can drive cold planets onto nearly parabolic orbits with pericenter passages extremely close to their host stars. Meanwhile, short-period super-Earths are frequently…
Most known extrasolar planets (exoplanets) have been discovered using the radial velocity$^{\bf 1,2}$ or transit$^{\bf 3}$ methods. Both are biased towards planets that are relatively close to their parent stars, and studies find that…
Studies of transiting Neptune-size planets orbiting close to nearby bright stars can inform theories of planet formation because mass and radius and therefore mean density can be accurately estimated and compared with interior models. The…
Our understanding of the processes that are relevant to the formation and maintenance of habitable planetary systems is advancing at a rapid pace, both from observation and theory. The present review focuses on recent research that bears on…
A planetary system may undergo significant radial rearrangement during the early part of its lifetime. Planet migration can come about through interaction with the surrounding planetesimal disk and the gas disk--while the latter is still…
We examine the effect of giant planet migration on the formation of inner terrestrial planet systems. We consider situations in which the giant planet halts migration at semi-major axes in the range 0.13 - 1.7 AU due to gas disk dispersal.…
In recent years a paradigm shift has occurred in exoplanet science, wherein low-mass stars are increasingly viewed as a foundational pillar of the search for potentially habitable worlds in the solar neighborhood. However, the formation…
Giant planets orbiting main-sequence stars closer than 0.1 AU are called hot Jupiters. They interact with their stars affecting their angular momentum. Recent observations provide suggestive evidence of excess angular momentum in stars with…
With the wealth of planets that have been discovered over the past $\sim$ 20 years, the field can broadly be divided into two regimes. For understanding broad occurrence and formation rates, large numbers of planets allow for population…
We propose a stringent observational test on the formation of warm Jupiters (gas-giant planets with 10 d <~ P <~ 100 d) by high-eccentricity (high-e) migration mechanisms. Unlike hot Jupiters, the majority of observed warm Jupiters have…
[Abridged] We evaluate the coorbital corotation torque on a migrating protoplanet. The coorbital torque is assumed to come from orbit crossing fluid elements which exchange angular momentum with the planet when they execute a U-turn at the…
Gas giant planets orbiting within 0.1 AU of their host stars, unlikely to have formed in situ, are evidence for planetary migration. It is debated whether the typical hot Jupiter smoothly migrated inward from its formation location through…
Observations of structure in circumstellar debris discs provide circumstantial evidence for the presence of massive planets at large (several tens of au) orbital radii, where the timescale for planet formation via core accretion is…
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets, those most adequate for life to begin and evolve have been sought. Due to observational bias, however, most of the discovered planets so far are gas giants, precluding their habitability.…
Planets in young star clusters could shed light on planet formation and evolution since star clusters can provide accurate age estimation. However, the number of transiting planets detected in clusters was only $\sim 30$, too small for…
We analyze the properties of searches devoted to finding planetary transits by observing simple stellar systems, such as globular clusters, open clusters, and the Galactic bulge. We develop the analytic tools necessary to predict the number…
Prior to the 1990s, speculations about the occurrence of planets around other stars were based only on planet formation theory, observations of circumstellar disks, and the knowledge that at least one seemingly ordinary star had managed to…
Young intermediate-mass stars have become high-priority targets for direct-imaging planet searches following the recent discoveries of planets orbiting e.g. HR 8799 and Beta Pictoris. Close stellar companions to these stars can affect the…