Related papers: Ploonets: formation, evolution and detectability o…
Aims. Current and upcoming space missions may be able to detect moons of transiting extra-solar planets. In this context it is important to understand if exomoons are expected to exist and what their possible properties are. Methods. Using…
We revisit the tidal stability of extrasolar systems harboring a transiting planet and demonstrate that, independently of any tidal model, none but one (HAT-P-2b) of these planets has a tidal equilibrium state, which implies ultimately a…
During the last stages of the terrestrial planet formation, planets grow mainly through giant-impacts with large planetary embryos. The Earth's Moon was suggested to form through one of these impacts. However, since the proto-Earth has…
(Aims) We investigate whether volcanic exomoons can be detected in thermal wavelength light curves due to their phase variability along their orbit. The method we use is based on the photometric signal variability that volcanic features or…
Planet-disk interaction predicts a change in the orbital elements of an embedded planet. Through linear and fully hydrodynamical studies it has been found that migration is typically directed inwards. Hence, this migration process gives…
We have investigated i) the formation of gravitationally bounded pairs of gas-giant planets (which we call "binary planets") from capturing each other through planet-planet dynamical tide during their close encounters and ii) the following…
Exomoons may play an important role in determining the habitability of worlds outside of our solar system. They can stabilize conditions, alter the climate by breaking tidal locking with the parent star, drive tidal heating, and perhaps…
It is debated whether close-in giant planets can form in-situ and if not, which mechanisms are responsible for their migration. One of the observable tests for migration theories is the current value of the angle between the stellar…
The architecture of many exoplanetary systems is different from the solar system, with exoplanets being in close orbits around their host stars and having orbital periods of only a few days. We can expect interactions between the star and…
The torques exerted by a locally isothermal disk on an embedded planet lead to rapid inward migration. Recent work has shown that modeling the thermodynamics without the assumption of local isothermality reveals regions where the net torque…
During orbital migration of a giant extrasolar planet via ejection of planetesimals (Murray et al.~1998), inner mean motion resonances can be strong enough to cause planetesimals to graze or impact the star. We integrate numerically the…
The two dominant features in the distribution of orbital parameters for close-in exoplanets are the prevalence of circular orbits for very short periods, and the observation that planets on closer orbits tend to be heavier. The first…
We present new ways to identify single and multiple moons around extrasolar planets using planetary transit timing variations (TTVs) and transit duration variations (TDVs). For planets with one moon, measurements from successive transits…
Short period planets are subject to intense energetic irradiations from their stars. It has been shown that this can lead to significant atmospheric mass-loss and create smaller mass planets. Here, we analyse whether the evaporation…
We investigate modons on tidally synchronised extrasolar planets. Modons are highly dynamic, coherent flow structures composed of a pair of storms with opposite signs of vorticity. They are important because they divert flows on the…
A free-floating planet is a planetary-mass object that orbits around a non-stellar massive object (e.g. a brown dwarf) or around the Galactic Center. The presence of exomoons orbiting free-floating planets has been theoretically predicted…
Planets in close-in orbits interact magnetically and tidally with their host stars. These interactions lead to a net torque that makes close-in planets migrate inward or outward depending on their orbital distance. We compare systematically…
Since planet occurrence and primordial atmospheric retention probability increase with period, the occurrence-weighted median planets discovered by transit surveys may bear little resemblance to the low-occurrence, short-period planets…
Planet--Planet scattering is an efficient and robust dynamical mechanism for producing eccentric exoplanets. Coupled to tidal interactions with the central star, it can also explain close--in giant planets on circularized and potentially…
The recent discovery of free-floating planets and their theoretical interpretation as celestial bodies, either condensed independently or ejected from parent stars in tight clusters, introduced an intriguing possibility. Namely, that some…