Related papers: Can giant planets form by direct gravitational ins…
For a long time, gravitational instability in the disk of planetesimals has been suspected to be the main engine responsible for the beginning of dust growth, its advantage being that it provides for rapid growth. Its real importance in…
Giant planets dominate the mass of many planetary systems, including the Solar System, and represent the best-characterized class of extrasolar planets. Understanding the formation of giant planets bridges the high mass end of the planet…
The formation history of Jupiter has been of interest due to its ability to shape the solar system's history. Yet little attention has been paid to the formation and growth of Saturn and the other giant planets. Here, we explore the…
Recent observations of large-scale asymmetric features in protoplanetary disks suggest that large-scale vortices exist in such disks. Massive planets are known to be able to produce deep gaps in protoplanetary disks. The gap edges could…
We study gravitational instability and consequent star formation in a wide range of isolated disk galaxies, using three-dimensional, smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations at resolution sufficient to fully resolve gravitational…
We discuss the physics of vortices in the circumstellar disks associated with young stellar objects. We elucidate the basic physical properties of these localized storm systems. In particular, we consider point vortices, linear vortices,…
Fragmentation in a gravitationally unstable accretion disk can be an important pathway for forming stellar/planetary companions. To characterize quantitatively the condition for and outcome of fragmentation under realistic thermodynamics,…
Gas giants orbiting interior to the ice line are thought to have been displaced from their formation locations by processes that remain debated. Here we uncover several new metallicity trends, which together may indicate that two competing…
One of the unique aspects of Earth is that it has a fractionally large Moon, which is thought to have formed from a Moon-forming disk generated by a giant impact. The Moon stabilizes the Earth's spin axis at least by several degrees and…
In the standard model of gas giant planet formation, a large solid core (~ 10 times the Earth's mass) forms first, then accretes its massive envelope (100 or more Earth masses) of gas. However, inward planet migration due to gravitational…
We describe comprehensive calculations of the formation of icy planets and debris disks at 30-150 AU around 1-3 solar mass stars. Disks composed of large, strong planetesimals produce more massive planets than disks composed of small, weak…
We study the gravitational instability (GI) of small solids in a gas disk as a mechanism to form planetesimals. Dissipation from gas drag introduces secular GI, which proceeds even when standard GI criteria for a critical density or…
Recent observations by the {\it Kepler} space telescope have led to the discovery of more than 4000 exoplanet candidates consisting of many systems with Earth- to Neptune-sized objects that reside well inside the orbit of Mercury, around…
The solar system's dynamical state can be explained by an orbital instability among the giant planets. A recent model has proposed that the giant planet instability happened during terrestrial planet formation. This scenario has been shown…
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…
In the classical core-accretion planet formation scenario, rapid inward migration and accretion timescales of kilometer size planetesimals may not favor the formation of massive cores of giant planets before the dissipation of…
We study global star formation thresholds in the outer parts of galaxies by investigating the stability of disk galaxies embedded in dark halos. The disks are self-gravitating, contain metals and dust, and are exposed to UV radiation. We…
Past studies have revealed the dependency of the disc parameters (mass, radius, viscosity, grain fragmentation velocity, dust-to-gas ratio) on the formation of giant planets, where more massive discs seem beneficial for giant planet…
The radial transport, or drift, of dust has taken a critical role in giant planet formation theory. However, it has been challenging to identify dust drift pile ups in the hard-to-observe inner disk. We find that the IM Lup disk shows…
While collisional accumulation is nearly universally accepted as the formation mechanism of rock and ice worlds, the situation regarding gas giant planet formation is more nuanced. Gas accretion by solid cores formed by collisional…