Related papers: Evidence for Planet-Planet Scattering in Upsilon A…
We have detected a 12 M$_{\rm Jup}$ planet orbiting in or near the habitable zone of a main-sequence A star via the pulsational phase shifts induced by orbital motion. The planet has an orbital period of $840\pm20$ d and an eccentricity of…
The two dominant features in the distribution of orbital parameters for close-in exoplanets are the prevalence of circular orbits for very short periods, and the observation that planets on closer orbits tend to be heavier. The first…
A fundamental question in the study of planetary system demographics is: how common is the solar system architecture? The primary importance of this question lies in the potential of planetary systems to create habitable environments, and…
The orbital eccentricity-radius relation for small planets is indicative of the predominant dynamical sculpting processes during late-stage orbital evolution. Previous studies have shown that planets orbiting Sun-like stars exhibit an…
NASA's Kepler mission discovered $\sim700$ planets in multi-planet systems containing 3 or more transiting bodies, many of which are super-Earths and mini-Neptunes in compact configurations. Using $N$-body simulations, we examine the in…
The recent discovery of free-floating planets and their theoretical interpretation as celestial bodies, either condensed independently or ejected from parent stars in tight clusters, introduced an intriguing possibility. Namely, that some…
Most stars form in a clustered environment. Both single and binary stars will sometimes encounter planetary systems in such crowded environments. Encounter rates for binaries may be larger than for single stars, even for binary fractions as…
The detection of exoplanets through direct imaging has produced numerous new positive identifications in recent years. The technique is biased towards planets at wide separations due to the difficulty in removing the stellar signature at…
Recent observations have revealed the eccentricity and inclination distributions of close-in super-Earths. These distributions have the potential to constrain their formation processes. In the in-situ formation scenario, the eccentricities…
All the four giant planets in our Solar System have rings, but their characteristics are very different. The rings consist of a number of small particles, although individual particles have not been directly imaged. Near the central planet,…
We study the orbital architecture of multi-planet systems detected by the Kepler transit mission using N-body simulations, focusing on the orbital spacing between adjacent planets in systems showing four or more transiting planets. We find…
Context. The paths followed by the known extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) effectively avoid direct gravitational perturbations from the four giant planets, yet their orbital eccentricities are in the range between 0.69-0.97. Solar…
We investigate the origin of close-in planets and related phenomena orbiting white dwarfs (WDs), which are thought to originate from orbits more distant from the star. We use the planetary architectures of the 75 multiple-planet systems…
We study the dynamics of the upsilon-Andromedae planetary system proposed by Curiel et al. (2011). We focus on the study of the 3:1 Mean Motion Resonance between upsilon-Andromedae-d and the recently discovered upsilon-Andromedae-e…
A significant fraction of white dwarfs (WDs) are observed to be polluted with metals despite high surface gravities and short settling times. The current theoretical model for this pollution is accretion of rocky bodies delivered to the WD…
The spin-rotation of a planet arises from the accretion of angular momentum during its formation, but the details of this process are still unclear. In the solar system, the equatorial rotation velocities and spin angular momentum of the…
This paper considers secular interactions within multi-planet systems. In particular we consider dynamical evolution of known planetary systems resulting from an additional hypothetical planet on an eccentric orbit. We start with an…
Most stars form in star clusters and stellar associated. To understand the roles of star cluster environments in shaping the dynamical evolution of planetary systems, we carry out direct $N$-body simulations of four planetary systems models…
Exoplanets are organized in a broad array of orbital configurations that reflect their formation along with billions of years of dynamical processing through gravitational interactions. This history is encoded in the angular momentum…
Determining whether Earth-like planets are common or rare looms as a touchstone in the question of life in the universe. We searched for Earth-size planets that cross in front of their host stars by examining the brightness measurements of…