Related papers: Orbital stability of compact three-planet systems,…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
Assuming that giant planets are formed in thin protoplanetary discs, a '3D' system can form, provided that the mutual inclination is excited by some dynamical mechanism. Resonant interactions and close planetary encounters are thought to be…
We report on the orbital architectures of Kepler systems having multiple planet candidates identified in the analysis of data from the first six quarters of Kepler data and reported by Batalha et al. (2013). These data show 899 transiting…
This work shows the dynamical instability that can happen to close-in satellites when planet oblateness is not accounted for in non-coplanar multiplanet systems. Simulations include two secularly interacting Jupiter-mass planets mutually…
The architecture of a planetary system can influence the habitability of a planet via orbital effects, particularly in the areas of stability and eccentricity. Some of these effects are readily apparent, particularly when they occur on…
Due to the chaotic nature of the Solar System, the question of its dynamic long-term stability can only be answered in a statistical sense, e.g. based on numerical ensemble integrations of nearby orbits. Destabilization, including…
We evaluate the extent of the regions within the $\alpha$ Centauri AB star system where small planets are able to orbit for billion-year timescales, and we calculate the positions on the sky plane where planets on stable orbits about either…
The existence of giant planets on wide orbits ($\stackrel{>}{_\sim}100$AU) challenge planet formation theories; the core accretion scenario has difficulty in forming them, whereas the disc instability model forms an overabundance of them…
Context. The presence of a stellar companion can strongly influence the architecture and long-term stability of planetary systems. Motivated by the discovery of exoplanets exhibiting extremely high eccentricities (e >= 0.8) in systems with…
Recent analyses of Kepler space telescope data reveal that transiting planets with orbital periods shorter than about 2-3 days are generally observed around late-type stars with rotation periods longer than about 5-10 days. We investigate…
We present a detailed dynamical analysis of the orbital stability of the two circumbinary planets recently proposed to orbit the evolved eclipsing binary star system NSVS 14256825. As is the case for other recently proposed circumbinary…
A fraction of multiple planet candidate systems discovered from transits by the Kepler mission contain pairs of planet candidates that are in orbital resonance or are spaced slightly too far apart to be in resonance. We focus here on the…
Tidal interactions and planet evaporation processes impact the evolution of close-in star-planet systems. We study the impact of stellar rotation on these processes. We compute the time evolution of star-planet systems consisting of a…
Given the tendency of planets to form in multiples, and the observational evidence in support of the existence of potential planet-hosting stars in binaries or clusters, it is expected that extrasolar terrestrial planes are more likely to…
Current planet formation theories rely on initially compact orbital configurations undergoing a (possibly extended) phase of giant impacts following the dispersal of the dissipative protoplanetary disk. The orbital architectures of observed…
We develop a simple model of planetary formation, focusing our attention on those planets with masses less than 10 Earth masses and studying particularly the primordial spin parameters of planets resulting from the accretion of…
Given the inexorable increase in the Sun's luminosity, Earth will exit the habitable zone in ~1 Gyr. There is a negligible chance that Earth's orbit will change during that time through internal Solar System dynamics. However, there is a…
In this work, we investigate the dynamical effects of a sequence of close encounters over 200 Myr varying in the interval of 10000 -- 100000 au between a binary star system and passing stars with masses ranging from 0.1$M_{\odot}$ to…
The orbital evolution and stability of planetary systems with interaction from the belts is studied using the standard phase-plane analysis. In addition to the fixed point which corresponds to the Keplerian orbit, there are other fixed…
We show that stability of planetary systems is intimately connected with their internal order. An arbitrary initial distribution of planets is susceptible to catastrophic events in which planets either collide or are ejected from the…