Related papers: Planet-disk interaction and evolution
Whereas the understanding of most phases of stellar evolution made considerable progress throughout the whole of the twentieth century, stellar formation remained rather enigmatic and poorly constrained by observations until about three…
In 2018, images were released of a planet being formed around the star PDS 70, offering a tantalizing glimpse into how planets come into being. However, many questions remain about how dust evolves into planets, and astrophysical…
The dynamical interactions of planetary systems may be a clue to their formation histories. Therefore, the distribution of these interactions provides important constraints on models of planet formation. We focus on each system's apsidal…
Advances in the discovery and characterization of asteroids over the past decade have revealed an unanticipated underlying structure that points to a dramatic early history of the inner Solar System. The asteroids in the main asteroid belt…
Kant and Laplace suggested the Solar System formed from a rotating gaseous disk in the 18th century, but convincing evidence that young stars are indeed surrounded by such disks was not presented for another 200 years. As we move into the…
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…
Most detected planet-bearing binaries are in wide orbits, for which a high inclination, $i_B$, between the binary orbital plane and the plane of the planetary disk around the primary is likely to be common. In this paper, we investigate the…
Magnetic fields play a crucial role at all stages of the formation of low mass stars and planetary systems. In the final stages, in particular, they control the kinematics of in-falling gas from circumstellar discs, and the launching and…
Planets form and obtain their compositions from the leftover material present in protoplanetary disks of dust and gas surrounding young stars. The chemical make-up of a disk influences every aspect of planetary composition including their…
The transfer of circumstellar disk mass and momentum onto the protostar and out into the environment occurs via a variety of mechanisms including magnetospheric accretion, jets, outflows, and disk winds. The interplay of these processes…
Planetesimals form in gas-rich protoplanetary disks around young stars. However, protoplanetary disks fade in about 10 Myr. The planetesimals (and also many of the planets) left behind are too dim to study directly. Fortunately, collisions…
The ensemble of now more than 250 discovered planetary systems displays a wide range of masses, orbits and, in multiple systems, dynamical interactions. These represent the end point of a complex sequence of events, wherein an entire…
The discovery of planets in close orbits around binary stars raises questions about their formation. It is believed that these planets formed in the outer regions of the disc and then migrated through planet-disc interaction to their…
Several properties of the Solar System, including the wide radial spacing of the giant planets, can be explained if planets radially migrated by exchanging orbital energy and momentum with outer disk planetesimals. Neptune's…
The abundances of elements in the Earth and the terrestrial planets provide the initial conditions for life and clues as to the history and formation of the Solar System. We follow the pioneering work of Bond et al. (2010) and combine…
The past decade has seen a revolution in our understanding of protoplanetary disk evolution and planet formation in single star systems. However, the majority of solar-type stars form in binary systems, so the impact of binary companions on…
According to the canonical planet formation theory, planets form "in-situ" within a planetesimal disk via runaway and oligarchic growth. This theory, however, cannot naturally account for the formation timescale of ice giants or the…
The inner solar system possesses a unique orbital structure in which there are no planets inside the Mercury orbit and the mass is concentrated around the Venus and Earth orbits. The origins of these features still remain unclear. We…
Recent observations of several protoplanetary discs have found evidence of departures from flat, circular motion in the inner regions of the disc. One possible explanation for these observations is a disc warp, which could be induced by a…
The Solar System hosts the most studied and best understood major and minor planetary bodies - and the only extraterrestrial bodies to have been visited by spacecraft. The Solar System therefore provides important constraints on both the…