Related papers: Inclination pathways of planet-crossing asteroids
A group of newly observed extreme trans-Neptunian objects exhibit unexpected orbital confinement, characterized by the alignment of orbital angular momentum vectors and apsidal lines. It is proposed that an undiscovered giant planet, named…
Recently, gas giant planets in nearly circular orbits with large semimajor axes ($a \sim$ 30--1000AU) have been detected by direct imaging. We have investigated orbital evolution in a formation scenario for such planets, based on core…
The metal budgets in some white dwarf (WD) atmospheres reveal that volatile-rich circumstellar bodies must both exist in extrasolar systems and survive the giant branch phases of stellar evolution. The resulting behaviour of these active…
The presence of an external tidal field often induces significant dynamical evolutionary effects on the internal kinematics of star clusters. Previous studies investigating the restricted three-body problem with applications to star cluster…
Planet formation is often considered in the context of one circumstellar disk around one star. Yet stellar binary systems are ubiquitous, and thus a substantial fraction of all potential planets must form and evolve in more complex,…
We revisit the problem of secular resonance sweeping during the dissipation of a protoplanetary disk and its possible role in exciting the orbits of primordial asteroids, in the light of recent models of solar system evolution. We develop…
Fragmentation and fission of giant molecular clouds occasionally results in a pair of gravitationally bound star clusters that orbit their mutual centre of mass for some time, under the influence of internal and external perturbations. We…
Red (S > 10%/0.1 micron) spectral slopes are common among Centaurs and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in the outer solar system. Interior to and co-orbital with Jupiter, the red (S approx. = 10%/0.1 micron) slopes of D-type main-belt and…
We provide a generalized discussion of tidal evolution to arbitrary order in the expansion of the gravitational potential between two spherical bodies of any mass ratio. To accurately reproduce the tidal evolution of a system at separations…
With $n$-body simulations we investigate the stability of tilted circumbinary planetary systems consisting of two nonzero mass planets. The planets are initially in circular orbits that are coplanar to each other, as would be expected if…
The distribution of eccentricities e of extra-solar planets with semi-major axes a > 0.2 AU is very uniform, and values for e are generally large. For a < 0.2 AU, eccentricities are much smaller (most e < 0.2), a characteristic widely…
We present a systematic examination of the changes in semi-major axis caused by the mutual interactions of a group of massive bodies orbiting a central star in the presence of eccentricity dissipation. For parameters relevant to the…
For 61 transiting hot Jupiters, the projection of the angle between the orbital plane and the stellar equator (called the spin-orbit angle) has been measured. For about half of them, a significant misalignment is detected, and retrograde…
Transiting planets in multiple-star systems, especially high-order multiples, make up a small fraction of the known planet population but provide unique opportunities to study the environments in which planets would have formed.…
Understanding the dynamical evolution of asteroids through the secular Yarkovsky effect requires the determination of many physical properties, including the rotation period. We propose a method aimed at obtaining a robust determination of…
Extrasolar planets with sizes between that of the Earth and Neptune ($R_{\rm p}=1{-}4~{\rm R}_\oplus$) have a bimodal radius distribution. This 'planet radius valley' separates compact, rocky super-Earths ($R_{\rm p}=1.0{-}1.8~{\rm…
We investigate the interaction between an eccentric planet and a less massive external debris disc. This scenario could occur after planet-planet scattering or merging events. We characterise the evolution over a wide range of initial…
We present a parameter study of the possibility of tidally triggered disk instability. Using a restricted N-body model which allows for a survey of an extended parameter space, we show that a passing dwarf star with a mass between 0.1 and 1…
Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are icy/rocky bodies that move beyond the orbit of Neptune in a region known as the trans-Neptunian belt (or Edgeworth-Kuiper belt). In contrast to the predictions of accretion models that feature…
We investigate the mechanism of polar alignment for accretion discs in hierarchical systems (HSs) with more than two stars. In eccentric binary systems, low mass discs that are sufficiently tilted to the binary orbit align in a polar…