Related papers: Planets in Globular Clusters?
In the Solar system the planets' compositions vary with orbital distance, with rocky planets in close orbits and lower-density gas giants in wider orbits. The detection of close-in giant planets around other stars was the first clue that…
Among the hundred or so extrasolar planets discovered to date, 19 are orbiting a component of a double or multiple star system. In this paper, we discuss the properties of these planets and compare them to the characteristics of planets…
The discovery of Exoplanetary Systems has challenged some of the theories of planet formation, which assume unperturbed evolution of the host star and its planets. However, in star clusters the interactions with flyby stars and binaries may…
The existence of planets born in environments highly perturbed by a stellar companion represents a major challenge to the paradigm of planet formation. In numerical simulations, the presence of a close binary companion stirs up the relative…
The discovery of a large population of intra-cluster star clusters in the central region of the Hydra I and Centaurus galaxy clusters is presented. Based on deep VLT photometry (V,I), many star clusters have been identified not only around…
We place limits on the population of non-recycled pulsars originating in globular clusters through Monte Carlo simulations and frequentist statistical techniques. We set upper limits on the birth rates of non-recycled cluster pulsars and…
Typical globular clusters (GCs - young and old) host stellar populations with little or no star-to-star variations in heavy elements (e.g., Ca, Fe) nor in age. Nuclear star clusters (NSCs), on the other hand, host complex stellar…
Most young low-mass stars are born as binary systems, and circumstellar disks have recently been observed around the individual components of proto-binary systems (e.g. L1551-IRS5). Thus planets and planetary systems are likely to form…
Globular clusters contain multiple stellar populations, with some previous generation of stars polluting the current stars with heavier elements. Understanding the history of globular clusters is helpful in understanding how galaxies merged…
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,…
Motivated by the large number of compact extrasolar planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Mission, this paper considers perturbations due to possible additional outer planets. The discovered compact systems sometimes contain multiple…
Globular clusters (GCs) are evolved stellar systems containing entire populations of millisecond pulsars (MSPs), which are efficient gamma-ray emitters. Observations of this emission can be used as a powerful tool to explore the dynamical…
We find that free-floating planets can remain bound to a star cluster for much longer than was previously assumed: of the order of the cluster half-mass relaxation timescale as opposed to the crossing-time. This result is based on N-body…
The majority of star formation results in binaries or higher multiple systems, and planets in such systems are constrained to a limited range of orbital parameters in order to remain stable against perturbations from stellar companions.…
We consider the dynamical evolution of small-scale substructure in clusters within two extreme alternate scenarios for their possible origin: 1) the accretion of groups (or small clusters) on quasi-radial orbits, and 2) the merger of…
With more than 260 extrasolar planetary systems discovered to-date, the search for habitable planets has found new grounds. Unlike our solar system, the stars of many of these planets are hosts to eccentric or close-in giant bodies. Several…
Planets that form around stars born in dense stellar environments are subject to dynamical perturbations from other stars in the system. These perturbations will strip outer planets, forming a population of free-floating planets, some of…
We analyze the effect of companion stars on the bulk density of 29 planets orbiting 15 stars in the Kepler field. These stars have at least one stellar companion within 2", and the planets have measured masses and radii, allowing an…
The primary difficulty with using transits to discover extrasolar planets is the low probability a planet has of transiting its parent star. One way of overcoming this difficulty is to search for transits in dense stellar fields, such as…
Star clusters have hierarchical patterns in space and time, suggesting formation processes in the densest regions of a turbulent interstellar medium. Clusters also have hierarchical substructure when they are young, which makes them all…