Related papers: Planet formation in clusters
Star clusters provide an excellent opportunity to study the role of environment on determining the frequencies of short period planets. They provide a large sample of stars which can be imaged simultaneously, with a common distance, age and…
Understanding how galaxies form and evolve is at the heart of modern astronomy. With the advent of large-scale surveys and simulations, remarkable progress has been made in the last few decades. Despite this, the physical processes behind…
The demographic of circumstellar disks, the birthplaces of planets, is diverse and rich in disks featuring rings, gaps, spirals, filaments, and arcs. Many studies revealing these disk structures have focused on objects around single stars…
The majority of stars form in star clusters and many are thought to have planetary companions. We demonstrate that multi-planet systems are prone to instabilities as a result of frequent stellar encounters in these star clusters much more…
Whether binaries can harbor potentially habitable planets depends on several factors including the physical properties and the orbital characteristics of the binary system. While the former determines the location of the habitable zone…
The physics of planet formation is investigated using a population synthesis approach. We develop a simple model for planetary growth including pebble and gas accretion, and orbital migration in an evolving protoplanetary disk. The model is…
All the four giant planets in our Solar System have rings, but their characteristics are very different. The rings consist of a number of small particles, although individual particles have not been directly imaged. Near the central planet,…
These notes collect together current work on the effect of the environment on galaxy formation and evolution. They are broken into four distinct parts. The first deals with the observational debate surrounding the question of whether…
Planets are observed to orbit the component star(s) of stellar binary systems on so-called circumprimary or circumsecondary orbits, as well as around the entire binary system on so-called circumbinary orbits. Depending on the orbital…
The question whether or not massive stars can form in isolation or only in star clusters is of great importance for the theory of (massive) star-formation as well as for the stellar initial mass function of whole galaxies (IGIMF-theory).…
Observations of circumstellar disks around stars as a function of stellar properties such as mass, metallicity, multiplicity, and age, provide constraints on theories concerning the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Utilizing…
The dependence of star formation rate on galaxian environment is a key issue in the understanding of galaxy formation and evolution. However, the study of this subject is complex and observationally challenging. This paper reviews some of…
The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition and potential habitability of these objects. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their…
It is widely accepted that stars do not form in isolation but result from the fragmentation of molecular clouds, which in turn leads to star cluster formation. Over time, clusters dissolve or are destroyed by interactions with molecular…
The formation of stars is a key process in astrophysics. Detailed knowledge of the physical mechanisms that govern stellar birth is a prerequisite for understanding the formation and evolution of our galactic home, the Milky Way. A theory…
The stars that populate the solar neighbourhood were formed in stellar clusters. Through N-body simulations of these clusters, we measure the rate of close encounters between stars. By monitoring the interaction histories of each star, we…
Binary systems are very common among field stars. While this relatively small number of planets in binaries is probably partly due to strong observational biases, there is, however, statistical evidence that planets are indeed less frequent…
Differences in the stellar populations of galaxies can be used to quantify the effect of environment on the star formation history. We target a sample of early-type galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in two different environmental…
The recent identification of several groups of young stars within 100 parsecs of the Sun has generated widespread interest. Given their proximity and possible age differences, these systems are ideally suited for detailed studies of disk…
The Solar System hosts the most studied and best understood major and minor planetary bodies - and the only extraterrestrial bodies to have been visited by spacecraft. The Solar System therefore provides important constraints on both the…