Related papers: Orbital Stability and Precession Effects in the Ke…
The dynamical stability of tightly packed exoplanetary systems remains poorly understood. While for a two-planet system a sharp stability boundary exists, numerical simulations of three and more planet systems show that they can experience…
We analyze a tilt instability of the orbit of an outer planet in a two planet circumbinary system that we recently reported. The binary is on an eccentric orbit and the inner circumbinary planet is on a circular polar orbit that causes the…
It is shown herein that planets with eccentric orbits are more likely to transit than circularly orbiting planets with the same semimajor axis by a factor of (1-e^2)^{-1}. If the orbital parameters of discovered transiting planets are…
The herein presented analytical framework fully describes the motion of coplanar systems consisting of a stellar binary and a planet orbiting both stars on orbital as well as secular timescales. Perturbations of the Runge-Lenz vector are…
We investigate the origins of Kepler-419, a peculiar system hosting two nearly coplanar and highly eccentric gas giants with apsidal orientations librating around anti-alignment, and use this system to place constraints on the properties of…
We report on the orbital architectures of Kepler systems having multiple planet candidates identified in the analysis of data from the first six quarters of Kepler data and reported by Batalha et al. (2013). These data show 899 transiting…
Recent ground and space-based observations show that stars with multiple planets are common in the galaxy. Most of these observational methods are biased toward detecting large planets near to their host stars. Because of these…
Tidal dissipation within a short-period transiting extrasolar planet perturbed by a companion object can drive orbital evolution of the system to a so-called tidal fixed point, in which the apsidal lines of the transiting planet and its…
This work shows the dynamical instability that can happen to close-in satellites when planet oblateness is not accounted for in non-coplanar multiplanet systems. Simulations include two secularly interacting Jupiter-mass planets mutually…
Recent observations have shown that at least some close-in exoplanets maintain eccentric orbits despite tidal circularization timescales that are typically shorter than stellar ages. We explore gravitational interactions with a distant…
This paper considers the stability of tidal equilibria for planetary systems in which stellar rotation provides a significant contribution to the angular momentum budget. We begin by applying classic stability considerations for two bodies…
We announce the discovery of a planetary system with 7 transiting planets around a Kepler target, a current record for transiting systems. Planets b, c, e and f are reported for the first time in this work. Planets d, g and h were…
In order to study the origin of the architectures of low mass planetary systems, we perform numerical surveys of the evolution of pairs of coplanar planets in the mass range $(1-4)\ \rmn{M}_{\oplus}.$ These evolve for up to $2\times10^7…
The Kepler mission's discovery of a number of circumbinary planets orbiting close (a_p < 1.1 au) to the stellar binary raises questions as to how these planets could have formed given the intense gravitational perturbations the dual stars…
The inclination of low-eccentricity orbits is shown to significantly affect the orbital parameters, in particular, the Keplerian, nodal precession, and periastron rotation frequencies, which are interpreted in terms of observable…
We examine the formation of planets around binary stars in light of the recently discovered systems Kepler 16, 34 and 35. We conduct hydrodynamical simulations of self gravitating disks around binary systems. The selected binary and disk…
Recent observational missions have uncovered a significant number of compact multi-exoplanet systems. The tight orbital spacing of these systems has led to much effort being applied to the understanding of their stability; however, a key…
We present an analytical formalism to study the secular dynamics of a system consisting of N-2 planets orbiting a binary star in outer orbits. We introduce a canonical coordinate system and expand the disturbing function in terms of…
We examine the effect of secular perturbations by giant planets on systems of multiple, lower mass planets orbiting Sun-like stars. We simulate the effects of forcing both eccentricity and inclination, separately and together. We compare…
Recently, a number of planets orbiting binary stars have been discovered by the Kepler space telescope. In a few systems the planets reside close to the dynamical stability limit. Due to the difficulty of forming planets in such close…