Related papers: The Persistent Missing Mass Problem in Planet Form…
It has recently been noted that many discs around T Tauri stars appear to comprise only a few Jupiter-masses of gas and dust. Using millimetre surveys of discs within six local star-formation regions, we confirm this result, and find that…
Planets are thought to form via accretion from a remnant disk of gas and solids around a newly formed star. During this process material in the disk either remains bound to the star as part of either a planet, a smaller celestial body, or…
Smaller terrestrial planets (< 0.3 Earth masses) are less likely to retain the substantial atmospheres and ongoing tectonic activity probably required to support life. A key element in determining if sufficiently massive "sustainably…
The dominant mechanism for generating free-floating planets has so far remained elusive. One suggested mechanism is that planets are ejected from planetary systems due to planet-planet interactions. However, instability around a single star…
The inferred dust masses from Class II protoplanetary disk observations are lower than or equal to the masses of the observed exoplanet systems. This poses the question of how planets form if their natal environments do not contain enough…
Various methods have been proposed to search for extrasolar planets. Compared to the other methods, microlensing has unique applicabilities to the detections of Earth-mass and free-floating planets. However, the microlensing method is…
Measured disk masses seem to be too low to form the observed population of planetary systems. In this context, we develop a population synthesis code in the pebble accretion scenario, to analyse the disk mass dependence on planet formation…
Forming giant planets by disk instability requires a gaseous disk that is massive enough to become gravitationally unstable and able to cool fast enough for self-gravitating clumps to form and survive. Models with simplified disk cooling…
Small planets ($\lesssim 1$ M$_\oplus$) at intermediate orbital distances ($\sim$1 au) represent an uncharted territory in exoplanetary science. The upcoming microlensing survey by the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be sensitive to…
The high rate of planet detection among solar-type stars argues that planet formation is common. It is also generally assumed that planets form in protoplanetary discs like those observed in nearby star forming regions. On what timescale…
The recent detection of planets around very low mass stars raises the question of the formation, composition and potential habitability of these objects. We use planetary system formation models to infer the properties, in particular their…
Free-floating planets are a new class of planets recently discovered. These planets don't orbit within stellar systems, instead living a nomadic life within the galaxy. How such objects formed remains elusive. Numerous works have explored…
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…
Celestial bodies with a mass of M ~ 10 M_Jup have been found orbiting nearby stars. It is unknown whether these objects formed like gas-giant planets through core accretion or like stars through gravitational instability. I show that…
The detection of Earth-size exoplanets around low-mass stars -- in stars such as Proxima Centauri and TRAPPIST-1 -- provide an exceptional chance to improve our understanding of the formation of planets around M stars and brown dwarfs. We…
Several studies, observational and theoretical, suggest that planetary systems with only rocky planets should be the most common in the Universe. We study the diversity of planetary systems that might form around Sun-like stars in low-mass…
Estimates of the frequency of planetary systems in the Milky Way are observationally limited by the low-mass planet regime. Nevertheless, substantial evidence for systems with undetectably low planetary masses now exist in the form of…
Doppler surveys have shown that more massive stars have significantly higher frequencies of giant planets inside $\sim$ 3 AU than lower mass stars, consistent with giant planet formation by core accretion. Direct imaging searches have begun…
Recent direct imaging discoveries suggest a new class of massive, distant planets around A stars. These widely separated giants have been interpreted as signs of planet formation driven by gravitational instability, but the viability of…
Microlensing observations suggest that the mass distribution of free-floating planets (FFPs) follows a declining power-law with increasing mass. The origin of such distribution is unclear. Using a population synthesis framework, we…