Related papers: Nodal Precession in Closely Spaced Planet Pairs
Before the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope, models of low-mass planet formation predicted that convergent Type I migration would often produce systems of low-mass planets in low-order mean-motion resonances. Instead, Kepler discovered…
One of the most remarkable properties of extrasolar planets is their high orbital eccentricities. Observations have shown that at least 20% of these planets, including some with particularly high eccentricities, are orbiting a component of…
Apsidal precession in stellar binaries is the main non-Keplerian dynamical effect impacting the radial-velocities of a binary star system. Its presence can notably hide the presence of orbiting circumbinary planets because many fitting…
Axisymmetric disks of eccentric Kepler orbits are vulnerable to an instability which causes orbits to exponentially grow in inclination, decrease in eccentricity, and cluster in their angle of pericenter. Geometrically, the disk expands to…
Through the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, several hot Jupiters have been found to exhibit spin-orbit misalignment, and even retrograde orbits. The high obliquity observed in these planets can be attributed to two primary formation mechanisms,…
The Kepler space mission has detected a large number of exoplanets in multiple transiting planet systems. Previous studies found that these Kepler multiple planet systems exhibit an intra-system uniformity, namely planets in the same system…
We investigate the possibility that the large orbital eccentricity of the transiting Neptune-mass planet Gliese 436b is maintained in the face of tidal dissipation by a second planet in the system. We find that the currently observed…
This paper considers whether the population of known transiting exoplanets provides evidence for additional outer planets on inclined orbits, due to the perturbing effect of such planets on the orbits of inner planets. As such, we develop a…
The observed properties of transiting exoplanets are an exceptionally rich source of information that allows us to understand and characterize their physical properties. Unfortunately, only a relatively small fraction of the known…
We present the secular theory of coplanar $N$-planet system, in the absence of mean motion resonances between the planets. This theory relies on the averaging of a perturbation to the two-body problem over the mean longitudes. We expand the…
We aim to investigate the influence of the eccentricity and inclination damping due to planet-disc interactions on the final configurations of the systems, generalizing previous studies on the combined action of the gas disc and…
Second-order mean-motion resonances lead to an interesting phenomenon in the sculpting of the period ratio distribution due to their shape and width in period-ratio/eccentricity space. As the osculating periods librate in resonance, the…
Whenever a freely spinning body is found in a complex rotational state, this means that either the body is a recent victim of an impact or a tidal interaction, or is a fragment of a recently disrupted progenitor. Another factor (relevant…
The discovery of multi-planet extrasolar systems has kindled interest in using their orbital evolution as a probe of planet formation. Accurate descriptions of planetary orbits identify systems which could hide additional planets or be in a…
We analyze the secular evolution of hierarchical triple systems to second-order in the quadrupolar perturbation induced on the inner binary by the distant third body. The Newtonian three-body equations of motion, expanded in powers of the…
To improve our understanding of orbital instabilities in compact planetary systems, we compare suites of $N$-body simulations against numerical integrations of simplified dynamical models. We show that, surprisingly, dynamical models that…
Changes in planetary obliquity, or axial tilt, influence the climates on Earth-like planets. In the solar system, the Earth's obliquity is stabilized due to interactions with our moon and the resulting {small amplitude variations…
We study the orbital evolution of a three planet system with masses in the super-Earth regime resulting from the action of tides on the planets induced by the central star which cause orbital circularization. We consider systems either in…
We calculate and analyze the distribution of period ratios observed in systems of Kepler exoplanet candidates including studies of both adjacent planet pairs and all planet pairs. These distributions account for both the geometrical bias…
The non-resonant secular dynamics of compact planetary systems are modeled by a perturbing function which is usually expanded in eccentricity and absolute inclination with respect to the invariant plane. Here, the expressions are given in a…