Related papers: Forming Iron-rich Planets with Giant Impacts
At the final stage of terrestrial planet formation, known as the giant impact stage, a few tens of Mars-sized protoplanets collide with one another to form terrestrial planets. Almost all previous studies on the orbital and accretional…
An exoplanet's structure and composition are first-order controls of the planet's habitability. We explore which aspects of bulk terrestrial planet composition and interior structure affect the chief observables of an exoplanet: its mass…
Carbon-enriched rocky exoplanets have been proposed around dwarf stars as well as around binary stars, white dwarfs and pulsars. However, the mineralogical make up of such planets is poorly constrained. We performed high-pressure…
We present a basic, fast, and flexible planet formation model, called SimAb (Simulating Abundances), to form giant planets and study their primary atmospheric composition soon after their formation. In SimAb we introduce parameters to…
The earliest stage of the evolution of a fully assembled planet is profoundly affected by a number of basin-forming impacts large enough to change the dynamics of its deeper interior. These impacts are in some cases quite closely spaced and…
Hundreds of exoplanets between 1-1.8 times the size of the Earth have been discovered on close in orbits. However, these planets show such a diversity in densities that some appear to be made entirely of iron, while others appear to host…
We have investigated the problem of the distribution of both masses and orbital radii of planets resulting from the gas-accretion, gas-capture model. First we followed the evolution of gas and solids from the moment where all solids are in…
The orbital distribution of giant planets is crucial for understanding how terrestrial planets form and predicting yields of exoplanet surveys. Here, we derive giant planets occurrence rates as a function of orbital period by taking into…
A large population of planetary candidates in short-period orbits have been found through transit searches. Radial velocity surveys have also revealed several Jupiter-mass planets with highly eccentric orbits. Measurements of the…
Theoretical studies of giant planet formation suggest that substantial quantities of metals - elements heavier than hydrogen and helium - can be delivered by solid accretion during the envelope-assembly phase. This metal enhancement process…
The formation of giant planets is best studied through direct imaging by observing planets both during and after formation. Giant planets are expected to form either by core accretion, which is typically associated with low initial entropy…
In the leading theory of lunar formation, known as the giant impact hypothesis, a collision between two planet-size objects resulted in a young Earth surrounded by a circumplanetary debris disk from which the Moon later accreted. The range…
We study the interaction between massive planets and a gas disc with a mass in the range expected for protoplanetary discs. We use SPH simulations to study the orbital evolution of a massive planet as well as the dynamical response of the…
Characterization of migration in gravitationally unstable disks is necessary to understand the fate of protoplanets formed by disk instability. As part of a larger study, we are using a 3D radiative hydrodynamics code to investigate how an…
We investigate a population of transiting planets that receive relatively modest stellar insolation, indicating equilibrium temperatures $< 1000$ K, and for which the heating mechanism that inflates hot Jupiters does not appear to be…
Studies of high-multiplicity, tightly-packed planetary systems suggest that dynamical instabilities are common and affect both the orbits and planet structures, where the compact orbits and typically low densities make physical collisions…
CONTEXT. Exoplanet searches have demonstrated that giant planets are preferentially found around metal-rich stars and that their fraction increases with the stellar mass. AIMS. During the past six years, we have conducted a radial velocity…
Collisional threats posed by Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are increasingly being confirmed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) sky surveys. Efforts to develop tools to perform modelling,…
The proportions of oxygen, carbon and major rock-forming elements (e.g. Mg, Fe, Si) determine a planet's dominant mineralogy. Variation in a planet's mineralogy subsequently affects planetary mantle dynamics as well as any deep water or…
The initial mass function (IMF) of planetesimals is of key importance for understanding the initial stages of planet formation, yet theoretical predictions so far have been insufficient in explaining the variety of IMFs found in…