Related papers: Repelling Planet pairs by Ping-pong Scattering
Planets in extrasolar systems tend to interact such that their orbits lie near a boundary between apsidal libration and circulation, a "separatrix", with one eccentricity periodically reaching near-zero. One explanation, applied to the…
Multi-planetary systems detected by the Kepler mission present an excess of planets close to first-order mean-motion resonances (2:1 and 3:2) but with a period ratio slightly higher than the resonant value. Several mechanisms have been…
Transiting circumbinary planets discovered by Kepler provide unique insight into binary star and planet formation. Several features of this new found population, for example the apparent pile-up of planets near the innermost stable orbit,…
Observational constraints on planet spin-axis has recently become possible, and revealed a system that favors a large spin-axis misalignment, a low stellar spin-orbit misalignment and a high eccentricity. To explain the origin of such…
We consider the dynamical evolution of two planets orbiting in the vicinity of a first order mean motion reso- nance while simultaneously undergoing eccentricity damping and convergent migration. Following Goldreich & Schlichting (2014), we…
The scattering of small bodies by planets is an important dynamical process in planetary systems. We present an analytical model to describe this process using the simplifying assumption that each particle's dynamics is dominated by a…
Many multiple-planet systems have been found by the Kepler transit survey and various radial velocity (RV) surveys. Kepler planets show an asymmetric feature, namely, there are small but significant deficits/excesses of planet pairs with…
We examine the eccentricity evolution of a system of two planets locked in a mean motion resonance, in which the outer planet loses energy and angular momentum. The sink of energy and angular momentum could be either a gas or planetesimal…
We investigate a repulsion mechanism between two low-mass planets migrating in a protoplanetary disk, for which the relative migration switches from convergent to divergent. This mechanism invokes density waves emitted by one planet…
We propose a planet formation scenario to explain the elevated occurrence rates of transiting planets around M dwarfs compared to sun-like stars discovered by Kepler. We use a pebble drift and accretion model to simulate the growth of…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…
Observations in the past decade have revealed extrasolar planets with a wide range of orbital semimajor axes and eccentricities. Based on the present understanding of planet formation via core accretion and oligarchic growth, we expect that…
We have conducted an angular differential imaging survey with NIRC2 at Keck in search of close-in substellar companions to a sample of seven systems with confirmed planetary-mass companions (PMCs) on wide orbits (>50 AU). These…
The spacings of super-Earths in multi-transiting systems exhibit a distribution that is broad and mostly featureless, with the exception of notable excesses of planet pairs situated a few percent wide of first-order mean motion resonances…
The Kepler mission has discovered that multiple close-in super-Earth planets are common around solar-type stars, but their period ratios do not show strong pile-ups near mean motion resonances (MMRs). One scenario is that super-Earths form…
Planets intermediate in size between the Earth and Neptune, and orbiting closer to their host stars than Mercury does the Sun, are the most common type of planet revealed by exoplanet surveys over the last quarter century. Results from…
Recent studies reveal that the free eccentricities of Kepler-34b and Kepler-413b are much larger than their forced eccentricities, implying that the scattering events may take place in their formation. The observed orbital configuration of…
Most multi-planet systems around mature ($\sim 5$-Gyr-old) host stars are non-resonant. Even the near-resonant planet pairs still display 1-2\% positive deviation from perfect period commensurabilities ($\Delta$) near first-order mean…
The origin of the spins of giant planets is an open question in astrophysics. As planets and stars accrete from discs, if the specific angular momentum accreted corresponds to that of a Keplerian orbit at the surface of the object, it is…
The widespread prevalence of close-in, nearly coplanar super-Earth- and sub-Neptune-sized planets in multiple-planet systems was one of the most surprising results from the Kepler mission. By studying a uniform sample of Kepler "multis"…