Related papers: Tilting Uranus: Collisions versus Spin--Orbit Reso…
Bailey et al.~(2016) and Gomes et al.~(2016) recently suggested that the 6 degree misalignment between the Sun's rotational equator and the orbital plane of the major planets may be produced by the forcing from the hypothetical Planet Nine…
The stellar obliquity of a planetary system is often used to help constrain the system's formation and evolution. One of the mechanisms to reorient the stellar spin involves a secular resonance crossing due to the dissipation of the…
The rotation of Mercury is presently captured in a 3/2 spin-orbit resonance with the orbital mean motion. The capture mechanism is well understood as the result of tidal interactions with the Sun combined with planetary perturbations.…
A giant impact origin for the Moon is generally accepted, but many aspects of lunar formation remain poorly understood and debated. \'Cuk et al. (2016) proposed that an impact that left the Earth-Moon system with high obliquity and angular…
Despite decades of effort, the mechanisms by which the spin axis of a star and the orbital axes of its planets become misaligned remain elusive. Particularly, it is of great interest whether the large spin-orbit misalignments observed are…
Multi-planet systems face significant challenges to detection. For example, further orbiting planets have reduced signal-to-noise ratio in radial velocity detection methods, and small mutual inclinations between planets can prevent them…
The significant orbital eccentricities of most giant extrasolar planets may have their origin in the gravitational dynamics of initially unstable multiple planet systems. In this work, we explore the dynamics of two close planets on…
This HDR-thesis is devoted to the study of the rotation of the natural satellites of the giant planets and of Mercury. These bodies have a resonant rotation. Most of the natural satellites rotate synchronously, showing the same hemisphere…
Uranus and Neptune exhibit fast surface zonal winds that can reach up to few hundred meters per second. Previous studies on zonal gravitational harmonics and Ohmic dissipation constraints suggest that the wind speeds diminish rapidly in…
Exoplanetary systems hosting multiple low-mass planets are thought to have experienced dynamical instability, during which planet-planet collisions and mergers occur; these collisions can impart substantial amount of angular momentum to the…
Recent work suggests that many short-period super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets may have significant spin axis tilts ("obliquities"). When planets are locked in high-obliquity states, the tidal dissipation rate may increase by several…
When a hot Jupiter orbits a star whose effective temperature exceeds $\sim$6100 K, its orbit normal tends to be misaligned with the stellar spin axis. Cooler stars typically have smaller obliquities, which may have been damped by hot…
The boundaries of the Uranian epsilon, alpha, and beta rings can be fitted by Keplerian ellipses. The pair of ellipses that outline a given ring share a common line of apsides. Apse alignment is surprising because the quadrupole moment of…
Few solar system asteroids and comets are found in high eccentricity orbits ($e > 0.9$) but in the primordial planetesimal disks and in exoplanet systems around dying stars such objects are believed to be common. For 2006 HY51, the main…
Context. True spin-orbit obliquities {\Psi} offer valuable insights into the evolutionary history of exoplanetary systems. Previous studies have suggested that exoplanets tend to occupy either aligned or perpendicular orbits. However,…
Through the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, several hot Jupiters have been found to exhibit spin-orbit misalignment, and even retrograde orbits. The high obliquity observed in these planets can be attributed to two primary formation mechanisms,…
We have located archival observations of the centaur 2015 OU$_{194}$ from 2017 and 2018, which extend its data-arc length from 1.0 to 3.5 years. We show that it is in an outer $3:4$ mean motion resonance with Uranus, henceforth referred to…
The rotation of a star and the revolutions of its planets are not necessarily aligned. This article reviews the measurement techniques, key findings, and theoretical interpretations related to the obliquities (spin-orbit angles) of…
Planets in the habitable zone of lower-mass stars are often assumed to be in a state of tidally synchronized rotation, which would considerably affect their putative habitability. Although thermal tides cause Venus to rotate retrogradely,…
Secular resonances in exoplanet systems occur when two or more planets have commensurabilities in the precession rates of their orbital elements, causing an exchange of angular momentum between them. The stellar gravitational quadrupole…