Related papers: Assessing the processes behind planet engulfment a…
The imprints of stellar nucleosynthesis and chemical evolution of the galaxy can be seen in different stellar populations, with older generation stars showing higher $\alpha$-element abundances while the later generations becoming enriched…
Detecting and confirming terrestrial planets is incredibly difficult due to their tiny size and mass relative to Sun-like host stars. However, recent instrumental advancements are making the detection of Earth-like exoplanets…
Exoplanet characterization is one of the main foci of current exoplanetary science. For super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, we mostly rely on mass and radius measurements, which allow to derive the body's mean density and give a rough estimate…
A number of stellar astrophysical phenomena, such as tidal novae and planetary engulfment, involve sudden injection of sub-binding energy in a thin layer within the star, leading to mass ejection of the stellar envelope. We use a 1D…
With the discovery of hundreds of exoplanets and a potentially huge number of Earth-like planets waiting to be discovered, the conditions for their habitability have become a focal point in exoplanetary research. The classical picture of…
Much effort has been invested in recent years, both observationally and theoretically, to understand the interacting processes taking place in planetary systems consisting of a hot Jupiter orbiting its star within 10 stellar radii. Several…
Despite being of vital importance to the immune system, the mechanism by which cells engulf relatively large solid particles during phagocytosis is still poorly understood. From movies of neutrophil phagocytosis of polystyrene beads, we…
Accretion of planetary material onto host stars may occur throughout a star's life. Especially prone to accretion, extrasolar planets in short-period orbits, while relatively rare, constitute a significant fraction of the known population,…
The chemical abundances of planet-hosting stars offer a glimpse into the composition of planet-forming environments. To further understand this connection, we make the first ever measurement of the correlation between planet occurrence and…
Under the current microlensing planet search strategy of monitoring events caused by stellar-mass lenses, only planets located within a narrow region of separations from central stars can be effectively detected. However, with the dramatic…
Atmospheric composition of exoplanets is often considered as a probe of the planet's formation condition. How exactly the initial chemical memory may be altered from the birth to the final state of the planet, however, remains unknown.…
Proto-planets embedded in their natal disks acquire hot envelopes as they grow and accrete solids. This ensures that the material they accrete - pebbles, as well as (small) planetesimals - will vaporize to enrich their atmospheres.…
A large fraction of stars forming in our galaxy are born within clusters embedded in giant molecular clouds. In these environments, the background UV radiation fields impinging upon circumstellar disks can often dominate over the radiation…
In order to gain a better understanding of planet formation and evolution, it is important to examine the statistics of exoplanets in the Galactic context. By combining information on stellar elemental abundances and kinematics, we…
The goal of planet formation as a field of study is not only to provide the understanding of how planets come into existence. It is also an interdisciplinary bridge which links astronomy to geology and mineralogy. Recent observations of…
At least 30\% of main sequence stars host planets with sizes of between 1 and 4 Earth radii and orbital periods of less than 100 days. We use N-body simulations including a model for gas-assisted pebble accretion and disk--planet tidal…
The tidal interactions of planets affect the stellar evolutionary status and the constraint of their physical parameters by gyrochronology. In this work, we incorporate the tidal interaction and magnetic braking of the stellar wind into…
The binary system 16 Cygni is key in studies of the planet-star chemical composition connection, as only one of the stars is known to host a planet. This allows us to better assess the possible influence of planet interactions on the…
Rotation has a number of important effects on the evolution of stars. Apart from structural changes because of the centrifugal force, turbulent mixing and meridional circulation caused by rotation can dramatically affect a star's chemical…
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,…