Related papers: Dynamical Relaxation and Massive Extrasolar Planet…
Recent studies have proposed that most warm Jupiters (WJs, giant planets with semi-major axes in the range of 0.1-1 AU) probably form in-situ, or arrive in their observed orbits through disk migration. However, both in-situ formation and…
The questions of how planets form and how common Earth-like planets are can be addressed by measuring the distribution of exoplanet masses and orbital periods. We report the occurrence rate of close-in planets (with orbital periods less…
Several properties of the Solar System, including the wide radial spacing and orbital eccentricities of giant planets, can be explained if the early Solar System evolved through a dynamical instability followed by migration of planets in…
It is well accepted that 'hot Jupiters' did not form in situ, as the temperature in the protoplanetary disc at the radius at which they now orbit would have been too high for planet formation to have occurred. These planets, instead, form…
The observed wide eccentricity distribution of extrasolar giant planets is thought to be the result of dynamical instabilities and gravitational scattering among planets. Previously, it has been assumed that the orbits in giant planet…
Instabilities in planetary systems can result in the ejection of planets from their host system, resulting in free-floating planets (FFPs). If this occurs in a star cluster, the FFP may remain bound to the star cluster for some time and…
Approximately half of the planets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are in systems where just a single planet transits its host star, and the remaining planets are observed to be in multi-planet systems. Recent analyses have reported a…
The high eccentricities of the known extrasolar planets remain largely unexplained. We explore the possibility that eccentricities are excited in the outer parts of an extended planetary disk by encounters with stars passing at a few…
Correlations in the orbits of several minor planets in the outer solar system suggest the presence of a remote, massive Planet Nine. With at least ten times the mass of the Earth and a perihelion well beyond 100 AU, Planet Nine poses a…
We consider the mass distribution of the nine unseen companions orbiting solar-type stars with minimum possible masses in the planetary mass range reported as of March 1998. We compare the mass distribution of these nine extrasolar planet…
Motivated by the large number of compact extrasolar planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Mission, this paper considers perturbations due to possible additional outer planets. The discovered compact systems sometimes contain multiple…
More than two decades after the widespread detection of Jovian-class planets on short-period orbits around other stars, their dynamical origins remain imperfectly understood. In the traditional narrative, these highly irradiated giant…
Exoplanet searches have discovered a large number of 'hot Jupiters'--high-mass planets orbiting very close to their parent stars in nearly circular orbits. A number of these planets are sufficiently massive and close-in to be significantly…
The majority of discovered exoplanetary systems harbour a new class of planets, bodies typically several times more massive than Earth but orbiting their host stars well inside the orbit of Mercury. The origin of these close-in super-Earths…
The study of our Solar System -- its formation, evolution, and long-term stability -- has been ongoing for centuries and is now a standard part of scientific education. While the formation of other Solar-like exoplanetary systems is…
Based on a suite of Monte Carlo simulations, I show that a stellar-mass dependent lifetime of the gas disks from which planets form can explain the lack of hot Jupiters/close-in giant planets around high-mass stars and other key features of…
Warm Jupiters-giant exoplanets with orbital periods between 10 and 200 days-exhibit a broad range of eccentricities and are often accompanied by nearby low-mass planets. Understanding the origins of their orbital architectures requires…
This paper explores the stability of an Earth-like planet orbiting a solar mass star in the presence of an outer-lying intermediate mass companion. The overall goal is to estimate the fraction of binary systems that allow Earth-like planets…
Recent exoplanet surveys revealed that for solar-type stars, close-in Super-Earths are ubiquitous and many of them are in multi-planet systems. These systems are more compact than the Solar System's terrestrial planets. However, there have…
Orbits of known extrasolar planets that are located outside the tidal circularization regions of their parent stars are often substantially eccentric. By contrast, planetary orbits in our Solar System are approximately circular, reflecting…