Related papers: Formation of Giant Planets
Magnetospheric accretion is an important process for a wide range of astrophysical systems, and may play a role in the formation of gas giant planets. Extending the formalism describing stellar magnetospheric accretion into the planetary…
We construct an analytic model for the rate of gas accretion onto a planet embedded in a protoplanetary disk as a function of planetary mass, disk viscosity, disk scale height, and unperturbed surface density in order to study the long-term…
A first characterization of many exoplanets has recently been achieved by the observational determination of their radius. For some planets, a measurement of the luminosity has also been possible, with many more directly imaged planets…
Modeling the formation of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune is a long-lasting problem in planetary science. Due to gas-drag, collisional damping, and resonant shepherding, the planetary embryos repel the planetesimals away from their reach…
The disk instability (DI) model for giant planet formation remains an attractive alternative in explaining the formation of giant planets at early times, giant planets at large radial distances, and giant planets orbiting M-stars. In this…
Planet formation studies are often focused on solar-type stars, implicitly considering our Sun as reference point. This approach overlooks, however, that Herbig Ae/Be stars are in some sense much better targets to study planet formation…
Models of planet formation have shown that giant planets have a large impact on the number, masses and orbits of terrestrial planets that form. In addition, they play an important role in delivering volatiles from material that formed…
We review the problem of the formation of terrestrial planets, with particular emphasis on the interaction of dynamical and geochemical models. The lifetime of gas around stars in the process of formation is limited to a few million years…
In principle, the combined measurements of the mass and radius a giant exoplanet allow one to determine the relative fraction of hydrogen and helium and of heavy elements in the planet. However, uncertainties on the underlying physics imply…
Planet formation models have been developed during the last years in order to try to reproduce the observations of both the solar system, and the extrasolar planets. Some of these models have partially succeeded, focussing however on…
Standard models of planet formation explain how planets form in axisymmetric, unperturbed disks in single star systems. However, it is possible that giant planets could have already formed when other planetary embryos start to grow. We…
Understanding the dominant brown dwarf and giant planet formation processes, and finding out whether these processes rely on completely different mechanisms or share common channels represents one of the major challenges of astronomy and…
Terrestrial planets form in a series of dynamical steps from the solid component of circumstellar disks. First, km-sized planetesimals form likely via a combination of sticky collisions, turbulent concentration of solids, and gravitational…
Observations of extrasolar planets reveal that planets can be found in close binary systems, where the semi-major axis of the binary orbit is less than 20 AU. The existence of these planets challenges planet formation theory, because the…
In a recent paper we proposed that the giant planets' primordial orbits may have been eccentric (~0.05), and used a suite of dynamical simulations to show outcomes of the giant planet instability that are consistent with their present-day…
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is one of the most exciting and dynamic frontiers in astronomy. Over the past two decades ongoing surveys have revealed an astonishing diversity in the planetary masses, radii, temperatures, orbital…
The solar and extra solar gas giants appear to have diverse internal structure and metallicities. We examine a potential cause for these dispersions in the context of the conventional sequential accretion formation scenario. In principle,…
Photoevaporation driven by the ultraviolet radiation from massive stars severely limits the lifetime of protoplanetary discs around stars formed within stellar clusters. I investigate the resulting influence of clustered environments on the…
As part of a national scientific network 'Pathways to Habitability' the formation of planets and the delivery of water onto these planets is a key question as water is essential for the development of life. In the first part of the paper we…
Several planetary systems are known to host multiple giant planets. However, when two giant planets are accreting from the same disk, it is unclear what effect the presence of the second planet has on the gas accretion process of both…