Related papers: Planet formation is unlikely in equal mass binary …
Planetesimal accretion during planet formation is usually treated as collisionless. Such accretion from a uniform and dynamically cold disk predicts protoplanets with slow retrograde rotation. However, if the building blocks of…
Numerical simulations show that the migration of growing planetary cores may be dominated by turbulent fluctuations in the protoplanetary disk, rather than by any mean property of the flow. We quantify the impact of this stochastic core…
Our recent N-body simulations of planetary system formation, incorporating models for the main physical processes thought to be important during the building of planets (i.e. gas disc evolution, migration, planetesimal/boulder accretion,…
Planet formation is often considered in the context of one circumstellar disk around one star. Yet stellar binary systems are ubiquitous, and thus a substantial fraction of all potential planets must form and evolve in more complex,…
Stars and planets are the fundamental objects of the Universe. Their formation processes, though related, may differ in important ways. Stars almost certainly form from gravitational collapse and probably have formed this way since the…
The first bound star-forming systems in the universe are predicted to form at redshifts of about 30 and to have masses of the order of 10^6 M_sun. Although their sizes and masses are similar to those of present star-forming regions, their…
Although several S-type and P-type planets in binary systems were discovered in past years, S-type planets have not yet been found in close binaries with an orbital separation not more than 5 au. Recent studies suggest that S-type planets…
The recent discoveries of massive planets on ultra-wide orbits of HR 8799 (Marois et al. 2008) and Fomalhaut (Kalas et al. 2008) present a new challenge for planet formation theorists. Our goal is to figure out which of three giant planet…
The evolution of gravitationally unstable protoplanetary gaseous disks has been studied with the use of three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations with unprecedented resolution. We have considered disks with initial…
One of the main scenarios of planet formation is the core accretion model where a massive core forms first and then accretes a gaseous envelope. This core forms by accreting solids, either planetesimals, or pebbles. A key constraint in this…
We present preliminary results from our spectroscopic search for planets within 1 AU of metal-poor field dwarfs using NASA time with HIRES on Keck I. The core accretion model of gas giant planet formation is sensitive to the metallicity of…
In the incremental growth model, planetesimal formation constitutes the least understood step in the process of planetary formation. The two main difficulties in this regard are the collision/fragmentation and the drift barriers. Numerous…
Planet formation around one component of a tight, eccentric binary system such as $\gamma$ Cephei (with semimajor axis around 20 AU) is theoretically challenging because of destructive high-velocity collisions between planetesimals. Despite…
In a turbulent proto-planetary disk, dust grains undergo large density fluctuations and under the right circumstances, these grain overdensities can overcome shear, turbulent, and gas pressure support to collapse under self-gravity (forming…
Dust drifting inward in protoplanetary disks is subject to increasing temperatures. In laboratory experiments, we tempered basaltic dust between 873 K and 1273 K and find that the dust grains change in size and composition. These…
Core accretion and disk instability have traditionally been regarded as the two competing possible paths of planet formation. In recent years, evidence have accumulated in favor of core accretion as the dominant mode, at least for close-in…
The large population of Earth to super-Earth sized planets found very close to their host stars has motivated consideration of $in$ $situ$ formation models. In particular, Inside-Out Planet Formation is a scenario in which planets coalesce…
Planet formation is directly linked to the birthing environment that protoplanetary disks provide. The disk properties determine whether a giant planet will form and how it evolves. The number of exoplanet and disk observations is…
We carry out global three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamical simulations of self-gravitating accretion discs to determine if, and under what conditions, a disc may fragment to form giant planets. We explore the parameter space (in terms…
Planet formation occurs over a few Myr within protoplanetary discs of dust and gas, which are often assumed to evolve in isolation. However, extended gaseous structures have been uncovered around many protoplanetary discs, suggestive of…