Related papers: A case of simultaneous star and planet formation
Planet formation studies are often focused on solar-type stars, implicitly considering our Sun as reference point. This approach overlooks, however, that Herbig Ae/Be stars are in some sense much better targets to study planet formation…
ALMA observations of protoplanetary disks acquired by the Disk Substructure at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP) resolve the dust and gas emission on angular scales as small as 3 astronomical units, offering an unprecedented detailed…
We examine changes in the molecular abundances resulting from increased heating due to a self-luminous planetary companion embedded within a narrow circumstellar disk gap. Using 3D models that include stellar and planetary irradiation, we…
While it is generally accepted that the magnetic field and its non-ideal effects play important roles during the stellar formation, simple models of pure hydrodynamics and angular momentum conservation are still widely employed in the…
The composition of gas and solids in protoplanetary discs sets the composition of planets that form out of them. Recent chemical models have shown that the composition of gas and dust in discs evolves on Myr time-scales, with volatile…
Newly formed stars are often observed to possess circumstellar disks, from which mass continues to be accreted onto the star and fed into outflowing jets, and which eventually may evolve into dusty debris disks and planetary systems. Recent…
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…
Extensive photometric stellar surveys show that many main sequence stars show emission at infrared and longer wavelengths that is in excess of the stellar photosphere; this emission is thought to arise from circumstellar dust. The presence…
We identify two distinct physical mechanisms for dust gap opening by embedded planets in protoplanetary discs based on the symmetry of the drag-induced motion around the planet: I) A mechanism where low mass planets, that do not disturb the…
Recent studies indicate that the formation of planets in protoplanetary disks begins early in the embedded Class 0/I phases of protostellar evolution. The physical and chemical makeup of the embedded phase can provide valuable insights into…
Substructures in disc density are ubiquitous in the bright extended discs that are observed with high resolution. These substructures are intimately linked to the physical mechanisms driving planet formation and disc evolution. Surveys of…
Inner cavities and annular gaps in circumstellar disks are possible signposts of giant planet formation. The young star HD 142527 hosts a massive protoplanetary disk with a large cavity that extends up to 140 au from the central star, as…
Recent discoveries of extrasolar planets at small orbital radii, or with significant eccentricities, indicate that interactions between massive planets and the disks of gas and dust from which they formed are vital for determining the final…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
The standard model for planet formation is a bottom-up process in which the origin of rocky and gaseous planets can be traced back to the collision of micron-sized dust grains within the gas-rich environment of protoplanetary disks. Key…
Direct imaging observations constrain the fraction of stars orbited by gas giant planets with separations greater than 10 au to about 0.01 only. This is widely believed to indicate that massive protoplanetary discs rarely fragment on…
Circumstellar disks are an essential ingredient of the formation of low-mass stars. It is unclear, however, whether the accretion-disk paradigm can also account for the formation of stars more massive than about 10 solar masses, in which…
Recent observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of disks around young stars revealed distinct asymmetries in the dust continuum emission. In this work we want to study axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric…
The discovery of wide-orbit giant exoplanets has posed a challenge to our conventional understanding of planet formation by coagulation of dust grains and planetesimals, and subsequent accretion of protoplanetary disk gas. As an alternative…
There has been disagreement currently about whether cooling in protoplanetary disks can be sufficiently fast to induce the formation of gas giant protoplanets via gravitational instabilities. Simulations by our own group and others indicate…