Related papers: The Planetary Luminosity Problem: "Missing Planets…
Giant planets are thought to form by runaway gas accretion onto solid cores. Growth must eventually stop running away, ostensibly because planets open gaps (annular cavities) in their surrounding discs. Typical models stop runaway by…
Newly-formed planetary systems with ages of <10 Myr offer many unique insights into the formation, evolution, and fundamental properties of extrasolar planets. These planets have fallen beyond the limits of past surveys, but as we enter the…
Extrasolar planet surveys have begun to detect gas giant planets in orbit around M dwarf stars. While the frequency of gas giant planets around M dwarfs so far appears to be lower than that around G dwarfs, it is clearly not zero. Previous…
Celestial bodies with a mass of M ~ 10 M_Jup have been found orbiting nearby stars. It is unknown whether these objects formed like gas-giant planets through core accretion or like stars through gravitational instability. I show that…
The evolution of protoplanetary discs embedded in stellar clusters depends on the age and the stellar density in which they are embedded. Stellar clusters of young age and high stellar surface density destroy protoplanetary discs by…
In the standard model of core accretion, the formation of giant planets occurs by two main processes: first, a massive core is formed by the accretion of solid material; then, when this core exceeds a critical value (typically greater than…
Planet formation occurs around a wide range of stellar masses and stellar system architectures. An improved understanding of the formation process can be achieved by studying it across the full parameter space, particularly toward the…
Our recent N-body simulations of planetary system formation, incorporating models for the main physical processes thought to be important during the building of planets (i.e. gas disc evolution, migration, planetesimal/boulder accretion,…
Measurements of accretion rates onto planetary mass objects may distinguish between different planet formation mechanisms, which predict different accretion histories. In this Letter, we use \HST/WFC3 UVIS optical photometry to measure…
During the late stage of planet formation when Mars-size cores appear, interactions among planetary cores can excite their orbital eccentricities, speed their merges and thus sculpture the final architecture of planet systems. This series…
Planets form in discs of gas and dust around stars, and continue to grow by accretion of disc material while available. Massive planets clear a gap in their protoplanetary disc, but can still accrete gas through a circumplanetary disk. For…
This paper constructs an analytic description for the late stages of giant planet formation. During this phase of evolution, the planet gains the majority of its final mass through gas accretion at a rapid rate. This work determines the…
Self-gravitating protostellar discs are unstable to fragmentation if the gas can cool on a time scale that is short compared to the orbital period. We use a combination of hydrodynamic simulations and N-body orbit integrations to study the…
Almost half of the stellar systems in the solar neighborhood are made up of multiple stars. In multiple-star systems, planet formation is under the dynamical influence of stellar companions, and the planet occurrence rate is expected to be…
Planets are often invoked as the cause of inferred gaps or inner clearings in transition disks. These putative planets would interact with the remnant circumstellar disk, accreting gas and generating substantial luminosity. Here I explore…
There are two planetary formation scenarios: core accretion and gravitational disk instability. Based on the fact that gaseous objects are preferentially observed around metal-rich host stars, most extra-solar gaseous objects discovered to…
The formation of planetary cores must proceed rapidly in order for the giant planets to accrete their gaseous envelopes before the dissipation of the protoplanetary gas disc (<3 Myr). In orbits beyond 10 AU, direct accumulation of…
Protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planets, commonly feature bright rings and dark gaps in both continuum and line emission maps. Accreting planets are interacting with the disk, not only through gravity, but also by changing the…
Giant Eruptions (GEs) are episodic high-rate mass loss events that massive stars experience in the late stage of evolutions before exploding as a core-collapse supernova. If it occurs in a binary system, the companion star can accrete part…
Spiral arm structures seen in scattered light observations of protoplanetary disks can potentially serve as signposts of planetary companions. They can also lend unique insights into disk masses, which are critical in setting the mass…