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All the giant planets in the solar system host a large number of natural satellites. Moons in extrasolar systems are difficult to detect, but a Neptune-sized exomoon candidate has been recently found around a Jupiter-sized planet in the…
Jupiter and Saturn play host to an impressive array of satellites, making it reasonable to suspect that similar systems of moons might exist around giant extrasolar planets. Furthermore, a significant population of such planets is known to…
Exoplanet discoveries have motivated numerous efforts to find unseen populations of exomoons, yet they have been unsuccessful. A plausible explanation is that most discovered planets are located on close-in orbits, which would make their…
We show that the fate of moons of a close-in giant planet is mainly determined by the migration history of the planet in the protoplanetary disk. As the planet migrates in the disk from beyond the snow line towards a multi-day period orbit,…
Recent studies have shown that large exomoons can form in the accretion disks around super-Jovian extrasolar planets. These planets are abundant at about 1 AU from Sun-like stars, which makes their putative moons interesting for studies of…
Confirmation of the first exomoon remains elusive. Although several exomoon candidates exist around single stars, there are currently no candidates around circumbinary planets (CBPs). Most circumbinary planets are thought to form far from…
We examine the effects that planetary encounters have on the moon systems of ejected gas giant planets. We conduct a suite of numerical simulations of planetary systems containing three Jupiter-mass planets (with the innermost planet at 3…
The presence of ``Hot Jupiters'', Jovian mass planets with very short orbital periods orbiting nearby main sequence stars, has been proposed to be primarily due to the orbital migration of planets formed in orbits initially much further…
Close-in giant planets (e.g. ``Hot Jupiters'') are thought to form far from their host stars and migrate inward, through the terrestrial planet zone, via torques with a massive gaseous disk. Here we simulate terrestrial planet growth during…
Of the few thousand discovered exoplanets, a significant number orbit in the habitable zone of their star. Many of them are gas giants lacking a rocky surface and solid water reservoirs necessary for life as we know it. The search for…
Most of the exoplanets with known masses at Earth-like distances to Sun-like stars are heavier than Jupiter, which raises the question of whether such planets are accompanied by detectable, possibly habitable moons. Here we simulate the…
Gas giant planets in the Solar system host large satellite systems with multiple regular and irregular moons. Regular moons revolve around their host planet in circular, low inclination short period orbits, and are thought to form in-situ…
We study the possibility that hot Jupiters are formed through the secular gravitational interactions between two planets in eccentric orbits with relatively low mutual inclinations ($\lesssim20^\circ$) and friction due to tides raised on…
The existence of hot Jupiters has challenged theories of planetary formation since the first extrasolar planets were detected. Giant planets are generally believed to form far from their host stars, where volatile materials like water exist…
The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about…
The origin of hot Jupiters -- gas giant exoplanets orbiting very close to their host stars -- is a long-standing puzzle. Planet formation theories suggest that such planets are unlikely to have formed in-situ but instead may have formed at…
One of the unique aspects of Earth is that it has a fractionally large Moon, which is thought to have formed from a Moon-forming disk generated by a giant impact. The Moon stabilizes the Earth's spin axis at least by several degrees and…
The existence of giant extrasolar planets on short-period orbits ("hot Jupiters") challenges planet formation theories because such planets are difficult to form close to the star. High-eccentricity migration is a leading explanation, in…
During planet formation, a gas giant will interact with smaller protoplanets that stray within its sphere of gravitational influence. We investigate the outcome of interactions between gas giants and terrestrial-sized protoplanets with…
We present a statistical study of the post-formation migration of giant planets in a range of initial disk conditions. For given initial conditions we model the evolution of giant planet orbits under the influence of disk, stellar, and mass…