Related papers: RV-detected planets around M dwarfs: Challenges fo…
A well-known bottleneck for the core-accretion model of giant-planet formation is the loss of the cores into the star by Type-I migration, due to the tidal interactions with the gas disk. It has been shown that a steep surface-density…
Modern astronomy has finally been able to observe protoplanetary disks in reasonable resolution and detail, unveiling the processes happening during planet formation. These observed processes are understood under the framework of…
Identification of the main planet formation site is fundamental to understanding how planets form and migrate to the current locations. We consider the heavy-element content trend of observed exoplanets derived from improved measurements of…
Gaps imaged in protoplanetary discs are suspected to be opened by planets. We compute the present-day mass accretion rates $\dot{M}_{\rm p}$ of seven hypothesized gap-embedded planets, plus the two confirmed planets in the PDS 70 disc. The…
The origin of close-in Jovian planets is still elusive. We examine the in-situ gas accretion scenario as a formation mechanism of these planets. We reconstruct natal disk properties from the occurrence rate distribution of close-in giant…
Nearby stars offer prime opportunities for exoplanet discovery and characterization through various detection methods. By combining HCI, RV, and astrometry, it is possible to better constrain the presence of substellar companions, as each…
The Pan-Planets survey observed an area of 42 sq deg. in the galactic disk for about 165 hours. The main scientific goal of the project is the detection of transiting planets around M dwarfs. We establish an efficient procedure for…
Planet traps are necessary to prevent forming planets from falling onto their host star by type I migration. Surface mass density and temperature gradient irregularities favor the apparition of traps and deserts. Such features are found at…
Recently revealed differences in planets around M dwarf vs. solar-type stars could arise from differences in their primordial disks, and surveys of T Tauri stars find a correlation between stellar mass and disk mass. "Minimum" disks have…
We compare the planet-to-star mass-ratio distribution measured by gravitational microlensing to core accretion theory predictions from population synthesis models. The core accretion theory's runaway gas accretion process predicts a dearth…
The ongoing High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Search (HARPS) has found that 30-50% of GK dwarfs in the solar neighborhood host planets with sub-Neptune masses in orbits of P < 50 days. At first glance, this overall occurrence rate seems…
Recent spectral observations by the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) reveal that some discs around young ($\sim {\rm few} \times 10^6$ yr old) stars have remarkably sharp transitions to a low density inner region in which much of the material…
We present simulations of multi-year RV follow up campaigns of the {\it TESS} small exoplanet yield on the Automated Planet Finder telescope, using four different schemes to sample the transiting planets' RV phase curves. For planets below…
We investigate the rotational evolution of young stars through Monte Carlo simulations. We simulate 280,000 stars, each of which is assigned a mass, a rotational period, and a mass accretion rate. The mass accretion rate depends on mass and…
Stellar populations and their distribution differ widely across the Galaxy, which is likely to affect planet demographics. Our local neighbourhood is dominated by young, metal-rich stars in the galactic thin disc, while the stellar halo and…
Giant planets are expected to form at orbital radii that are relatively large compared to transit and radial velocity detections (>1 AU). As a result, giant planet formation is best observed through direct imaging. By simulating the…
The Kepler mission has released over 4496 planetary candidates, among which 3483 planets have been confirmed as of April 2017. The statistical results of the planets show that there are two peaks around 1.5 and 2.0 in the distribution of…
During the late stage of planet formation when Mars-size cores appear, interactions among planetary cores can excite their orbital eccentricities, speed their merges and thus sculpture the final architecture of planet systems. This series…
We present a method of determining lower limits on the masses of pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars and so constraining the PMS evolutionary tracks. This method uses the red-shifted absorption feature observed in some emission-line profiles of T…
We investigate under what circumstances an embedded planet in a protoplanetary disc may sculpt the dust distribution such that it observationally presents as a `transition' disc. We concern ourselves with `transition' discs that have large…