Related papers: The birth environment of planetary systems
Protoplanetary disks are thought to be the birth places of planetary systems. The formation and the subsequent evolution of protoplanetary disks are regulated by the star formation process, which begins with the collapse of a cloud core to…
Most stars are born in the crowded environments of gradually forming star clusters. Dynamical interactions between close-passing stars and the evolving UV radiation fields from proximate massive stars are expected to sculpt the…
Most stars and thus most planetary systems do not form in isolation. The larger star-forming environment affects protoplanetary disks in multiple ways: gravitational interactions with other stars truncate disks and alter the architectures…
The formation of planets is one of the major unsolved problems in modern astrophysics. Planets are believed to form out of the material in circumstellar disks known to exist around young stars, and which are a by-product of the star…
Planets form and obtain their compositions in disks of gas and dust around young stars. The chemical compositions of these planet-forming disks regulate all aspects of planetary compositions from bulk elemental inventories to access to…
Most stars form in a clustered environment. Therefore, it is important to assess how this environment influences the evolution of protoplanetary discs around young stars. In turn, this affects their ability to produce planets and ultimately…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
The evolution of circumstellar discs is influenced by their surroundings. The relevant processes include external photoevaporation due to nearby stars, and dynamical truncations. The impact of these processes on disc populations depends on…
Our current understanding of the physical processes of star formation is reviewed, with emphasis on processes occurring in molecular clouds like those observed nearby. The dense cores of these clouds are predicted to undergo gravitational…
Thousands of confirmed and candidate exoplanets have been identified in recent years. Consequently, theoretical research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems has seen a boost, and the processes of planet-planet…
Nearly all young stars are initially surrounded by `protoplanetary' discs of gas and dust, and in the case of single stars at least 30\% of these discs go on to form planets. The process of protoplanetary disc formation can result in…
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…
Star formation is spatially clustered across a range of environments, from dense stellar clusters to unbound associations. As a result, radiative or dynamical interactions with neighbouring stars disrupt (proto)planetary systems and limit…
It appears that most stars are born in clusters, and that at birth most stars have circumstellar discs which are comparable in size to the separations between the stars. Interactions between neighbouring stars and discs are therefore likely…
Most stars are born in dense stellar environments where the formation and early evolution of planetary systems may be significantly perturbed by encounters with neighbouring stars. To investigate on the fate of circumstellar gas disks and…
One well-tested method in science is to separate the object of interest from its surroundings and look at it in isolation. The advantage is that unimportant information is removed and the true properties of the object are seen more clearly.…
Planet-forming circumstellar disks are a fundamental part of the star formation process. Since stars form in a hierarchical fashion in groups of up to hundreds or thousands, the UV radiation environment that these disks are exposed to can…
Protoplanetary disks around young stars are the birth sights of planetary systems like our own. Disks represent the gaseous dusty matter left after the formation of their central stars. The mass and luminosity of the star, initial disk mass…
Most stars do not form in isolation, but as part of a star cluster or association. These young stars are initially surrounded by protoplanetary discs. In these cluster environments tidal interactions with other cluster members can alter the…
The formation of planets with gaseous envelopes takes place in protoplanetary accretion discs on time-scales of several millions of years. Small dust particles stick to each other to form pebbles, pebbles concentrate in the turbulent flow…