Related papers: Dust Accretion onto Exoplanets
High-resolution millimetre-imaging of protoplanetary discs has revealed many containing rings and gaps. These rings can contain large quantities of dust, often in excess of 10M$_\oplus$, providing prime sites for efficient and rapid planet…
Millimeter sized dust grains experience radial velocities exceeding the gas velocities by orders of magnitude. The viscous evolution of the accretion disk adds disk material onto the central star's convective envelope, influencing its…
The motion of solid particles embedded in gaseous protoplanetary disks is influenced by turbulent fluctuations. Consequently, the dynamics of moderately to weakly coupled solids can be distinctly different from the dynamics of the gas.…
Atmospheric chemical abundances of giant planets lead to important constraints on planetary formation and migration. Studies have shown that giant planets that migrate through the protoplanetary disk can accrete substantial amounts of…
We examine the accretion of cores of giant planets from planetesimals, gas accretion onto the cores, and their orbital migration. We adopt a working model for nascent protostellar disks with a wide variety of surface density distributions…
We explore dust flow in the hottest parts of protoplanetary discs using the forces of gravity, gas drag and radiation pressure. Our main focus is on the optically thin regions of dusty disc, where the dust is exposed to the most extreme…
Super-Earths and mini-Neptunes are the most common types of exoplanets discovered, yet the physics of their formation are still debated. Standard core accretion models in gas-rich environment find that typical mini-Neptune mass planets…
Some recently discovered short-period Earth to Neptune sized exoplanets (super Earths) have low observed mean densities which can only be explained by voluminous gaseous atmospheres. Here, we study the conditions allowing the accretion and…
Recent surveys have revealed that protoplanetary discs typically have dust masses that appear to be insufficient to account for the high occurrence rate of exoplanet systems. We demonstrate that this observed dust depletion is consistent…
Planets grow via the collisional accretion of small bodies in a protoplanetary disk. Such small bodies feel strong gas drag and their orbits are significantly affected by the gas flow and atmospheric structure around the planet. We…
Context: Pebble accretion is expected to be the dominant process for the formation of massive solid planets, such as the cores of giant planets and super-Earths. So, far, this process has been studied under the assumption that dust…
We study the radial migration of dust particles in accreting protostellar disks analogous to the primordial solar nebula. This study takes account of the two dimensional (radial and normal) structure of the disk gas, including the effects…
Due to their aerodynamical coupling with gas, pebbles in protoplanetary discs can drift over large distances to support planet growth in the inner disc. In the past decade, this pebble accretion has been studied extensively for…
Dust grains migrating under Poynting-Robertson drag may be trapped in mean-motion resonances with planets. Such resonantly trapped grains are observed in the solar system. In extrasolar systems, the exozodiacal light produced by dust grains…
Observations of protoplanetary discs have revealed dust rings which are likely due to the presence of pressure bumps in the disc. Because these structures tend to trap drifting pebbles, it has been proposed that pressure bumps may play an…
Planet formation is directly linked to the birthing environment that protoplanetary disks provide. The disk properties determine whether a giant planet will form and how it evolves. The number of exoplanet and disk observations is…
Laboratory experiments show that dusty bodies in a gaseous environment eject dust particles if they are illuminated. We find that even more intense dust eruptions occur when the light source is turned off. We attribute this to a compression…
Super-Earths can form at large orbital radii and migrate inward due to tidal interactions with the circumstellar disk. In this scenario, convergent migration may occur and lead to the formation of resonant pairs of planets. We explore the…
Core accretion is the standard scenario of planet formation, wherein planets are formed by sequential accretion of gas and solids, and is widely used to interpret exoplanet observations. However, no direct probes of the scenario have been…
Theoretical formation models and exoplanet detection surveys indicate that systems with multiple giant planets are common. We investigate how multiple super-thermal mass planets embedded in a circumstellar disk shape the dust distribution…