Related papers: NICMOS Imaging of Candidate Extra-Solar Planetary …
We investigate the interaction between an eccentric planet and a less massive external debris disc. This scenario could occur after planet-planet scattering or merging events. We characterise the evolution over a wide range of initial…
Circumstellar disks do not evolve in isolation, as about half of solar-type stars were born in binary or multiple systems. Resolving disks in binary systems provides the opportunity to examine the influence of stellar companions on the…
Future instruments like NIRCam and MIRI on JWST or METIS at the ELT will be able to image exoplanets that are too faint for current direct imaging instruments. Evolutionary models predicting the planetary intrinsic luminosity as a function…
We develop a phenomenological theory that aims to account for the origin of the large eccentricities of extrasolar planets and that of the small eccentricities in the solar system, the preference for apsidal alignment in non-resonant…
(abridged) The old Star Cluster (SC) systems surrounding any sofar investigated galaxy represent a powerful tool for the understanding of the cosmological evolution of their host galaxies. Phases of enhanced cluster formation can be…
Few scientific discoveries have captured the public imagination like the explosion of exoplanetary science during the past two decades. This work has fundamentally changed our picture of Earth's place in the Universe and led NASA to make…
Circumstantial evidence suggests that most known extra-solar planetary systems are survivors of violent dynamical instabilities. Here we explore how giant planet instabilities affect the formation and survival of terrestrial planets. We…
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets has shown that the birth of planets is a very efficient process in nature. Several physical mechanisms have been proposed to describe the assembly of planets in disks surrounding young stars.…
Self-gravitating protostellar discs are unstable to fragmentation if the gas can cool on a time scale that is short compared to the orbital period. We use a combination of hydrodynamic simulations and N-body orbit integrations to study the…
The main properties of the observed extrasolar planets are reviewed with respect to their relevance to the formation scenario of planetary systems. Results of numerical computations of embedded planets in viscously evolving disks are…
Our understanding of the process of terrestrial planet formation has grown markedly over the past 20 years, yet key questions remain. This review begins by first addressing the critical, earliest stage of dust coagulation and concentration.…
Over the past 4 decades, the exploration of planets beyond our solar system has yielded the discovery of over 5600 exoplanets orbiting different stars. Continuous advancements in instrumentation and cutting-edge techniques empower…
Main sequence stars, like the Sun, are often found to be orbited by circumstellar material that can be categorized into two groups, planets and debris. The latter is made up of asteroids and comets, as well as the dust and gas derived from…
In this chapter of the Protostars and Planets VII, we review the breakthrough progress that has been made in the field of high-resolution, high-contrast optical and near-infrared imaging of planet-forming disks. These advancements include…
Previously published observations of 60 externally-polluted white dwarfs show that none of the stars have accreted from intact refractory-dominated parent bodies composed mainly of Al, Ca and O, although planetesimals with such a…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
Flattened, rotating disks of cool dust and gas extending for tens to hundreds of AU are found around almost all low mass stars shortly after their birth. These disks generally persist for several Myr, during which time some material…
Debris disks are optically thin, almost gas-free dusty disks observed around a significant fraction of main-sequence stars older than about 10 Myr. Since the circumstellar dust is short-lived, the very existence of these disks is considered…
Since the first detection of intracluster planetary nebulae in 1996, imaging and spectroscopic surveys identified such stars to trace the radial extent and the kinematics of diffuse light in clusters. This topic of research is tightly…
Planets are born from the gas and dust discs surrounding young stars. Energetic radiation from the central star can drive thermal outflows from the discs atmospheres, strongly affecting the evolution of the discs and the nascent planetary…