Related papers: Properties of Free Floating Planets Ejected throug…
This paper considers the dynamics of scattering of planetesimals or planetary embryos by a planet on a circumstellar orbit. We classify six regions in the planet's mass versus semimajor axis parameter space according to the dominant outcome…
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…
The two dominant features in the distribution of orbital parameters for close-in exoplanets are the prevalence of circular orbits for very short periods, and the observation that planets on closer orbits tend to be heavier. The first…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
A fundamental question in the study of planetary system demographics is: how common is the solar system architecture? The primary importance of this question lies in the potential of planetary systems to create habitable environments, and…
Secular perturbations from binary stars and distant massive planets can drive cold planets onto nearly parabolic orbits with pericenter passages extremely close to their host stars. Meanwhile, short-period super-Earths are frequently…
Observations of exoplanets have revealed that systems with planets on closely-spaced orbits are common, which motivates the question "How closely can planets orbit to one another and still be dynamically-stable for very long times?". To…
We present the latest velocities for 10 multi-planet systems, including a re-analysis of archival Keck and Lick data, resulting in improved velocities that supersede our previously published measurements. We derive updated orbital fits for…
The distribution of the orbits of close-in exoplanets shows evidence for on-going removal and destruction by tides. Tides raised on a planet's host star cause the planet's orbit to decay, even after the orbital eccentricity has dropped to…
Close-in giant planets are thought to have formed in the cold outer regions of planetary systems and migrated inward, passing through the orbital parameter space occupied by the terrestrial planets in our own Solar System. We present…
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…
Most stars form in a clustered environment. Both single and binary stars will sometimes encounter planetary systems in such crowded environments. Encounter rates for binaries may be larger than for single stars, even for binary fractions as…
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…
Motivated by recent measurements of the free-floating planet mass function at terrestrial masses, we consider the possibility that the solar system may have captured a terrestrial planet early in its history. We show that $\sim 1.2$…
Circumbinary planets whose orbits become unstable may be ejected, accreted, or even captured by one of the stars. We quantify the relative rates of these channels, for a binary of secondary star's mass fraction 0.1 with an orbit of 1AU. The…
The chemical composition of stars that have orbiting planets provides important clues about the frequency, architecture, and composition of exoplanet systems. We explore the possibility that stars from different galactic populations that…
Direct imaging searches have begun to detect planetary and brown dwarf companions and to place constraints on the presence of giant planets at large separations from their host star. This work helps to motivate such planet searches by…
The frequency of planets in binaries is an important issue in the field of extrasolar planet studies, because of its relevance in estimating of the global planet population of our Galaxy and the clues it can give to our understanding of…
For much of human history we have wondered how our solar system formed, and whether there are any other planets like ours around other stars. Only in the last 20 years have we had direct evidence for the existence of exoplanets, with the…
In planetary systems with sufficiently small inter-planet spacing, close encounters can lead to planetary collisions/mergers or ejections. We study the spin property of the merger products of two giant planets in a statistical manner using…