Related papers: The Persistent Missing Mass Problem in Planet Form…
Since 1995, more than 500 exoplanets have been detected using different techniques, of which 11 were detected with gravitational microlensing. Most of these are gravitationally bound to their host stars. There is some evidence of…
We examine the predictions of the core accretion - gas capture model concerning the efficiency of planet formation around stars with various masses. First, we follow the evolution of gas and solids from the moment when all solids are in the…
This paper constructs a theoretical framework for calculating the distribution of masses for gas giant planets forming via the core accretion paradigm. Starting with known properties of circumstellar disks, we present models for the…
(abridged) Most Class II sources (of nearby star forming regions) are surrounded by disks with weak millimeter continuum emission. These "faint" disks may hold clues to the disk dissipation mechanism. We attempt to determine the…
Recent gravitational microlensing observations predict a vast population of free-floating giant planets that outnumbers main sequence stars almost twofold. A frequently-invoked mechanism for generating this population is a dynamical…
We consider trends resulting from two formation mechanisms for short-period super-Earths: planet-planet scattering and migration. We model scenarios where these planets originate near the snow line in ``cold finger'' circumstellar disks.…
Planet formation occurs around a wide range of stellar masses and stellar system architectures. An improved understanding of the formation process can be achieved by studying it across the full parameter space, particularly toward the…
The compact multi-transiting planet systems discovered by Kepler challenge planet formation theories. Formation in situ from disks with radial mass surface density, $\Sigma$, profiles similar to the minimum mass solar nebula (MMSN) but…
It has long been known that stars with high metallicity are more likely to host giant planets than stars with low metallicity. Yet the connection between host star metallicity and the properties of small planets is only just beginning to be…
With planets orbiting stars, a planetary mass function should not be seen as a low-mass extension of the stellar mass function, but a proper formalism needs to take care of the fact that the statistical properties of planet populations are…
We investigate the minimum planet mass that produces observable signatures in infrared scattered light and submm continuum images and demonstrate how these images can be used to measure planet masses to within a factor of about two. To this…
We investigate the formation of planetesimals via the gravitational instability of solids that have settled to the midplane of a circumstellar disk. Vertical shear between the gas and a subdisk of solids induces turbulent mixing which…
The number of exoplanets detected using gravitational microlensing technique is currently larger than 200, which enables population studies. Microlensing is uniquely sensitive to low-mass planets orbiting at separations of several…
Trends in the planet population with host star mass provide an avenue to constrain planet formation theories. We derive the planet radius distribution function for Kepler stars of different spectral types, sampling a range in host star…
We examine the importance of secular stellar mass loss for fueling ongoing star formation in disk galaxies during the late stages of their evolution. For a galaxy of a given stellar mass, we calculate the total mass loss rate of its entire…
Gravitational microlensing is the only method capable of exploring the entire population of free-floating planets down to Mars-mass objects, because the microlensing signal does not depend on the brightness of the lensing object. A…
Spitzer observations of the young star CoKuTau/4 reveal a disk with a 10 AU hole that is most likely caused by a newly formed planet. Assuming that the planet opened a gap in the viscous disk, we estimate that the planet mass is greater…
Over the past 25 years, observations have uncovered a large population of free-floating planets (FFPs), whose origins remain debated. Massive FFPs (several Jupiter masses or more) may form via gravitational collapse of molecular clouds,…
To date, several exoplanets have been discovered orbiting stars with close binary companions (a~<30 AU). The fact that planets can form in these dynamically challenging environments implies that planet formation must be a robust process.…
We compare the planet-to-star mass-ratio distribution measured by gravitational microlensing to core accretion theory predictions from population synthesis models. The core accretion theory's runaway gas accretion process predicts a dearth…