Related papers: High-Resolution Simulations of a Moon-Forming Impa…
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,…
The moons of giant planets are believed to form in situ in Circumplanetary Discs (CPDs). Here we present an N-body population synthesis framework for satellite formation around a Jupiter-like planet, in which the dust-to-gas ratio, the…
We present the first results from simulations of processes leading to planet formation in protoplanetary disks with different metallicities. For a given metallicity, we construct a two-dimensional grid of disk models with different initial…
A new model for terrestrial planet formation (Hansen 2009, Walsh et al. 2011) has explored accretion in a truncated protoplanetary disk, and found that such a configuration is able to reproduce the distribution of mass among the planets in…
We perform collisionless N-body simulations to investigate the evolution of the structural and kinematical properties of simulated thick disks induced by the growth of an embedded thin disk. The thick disks used in the present study…
Although current sensitivity limits are such that true Solar System analogs remain challenging to detect, numerous planetary systems have been discovered that are very different from our own Solar System. The majority of systems harbor a…
We present the results of high resolution SPH simulations of the evolution of gravitationally unstable protoplanetary disks. We report on calculations in which the disk is evolved using a locally isothermal or adiabatic equation of state…
The heavy element content of giant exoplanets, inferred from structure models based on their radius and mass, often exceeds predictions based on classical core accretion. Pebble drift, coupled with volatile evaporation, has been proposed as…
The earliest stage of the evolution of a fully assembled planet is profoundly affected by a number of basin-forming impacts large enough to change the dynamics of its deeper interior. These impacts are in some cases quite closely spaced and…
Assuming that an unknown mechanism (e.g., gas turbulence) removes most of the subnebula gas disk in a timescale shorter than that for satellite formation, we develop a model for the formation of regular (and possibly at least some of the…
The most dramatic phases of terrestrial planet formation are thought to be oligarchic and chaotic growth, on timescales of up to 100-200 Myr, when violent impacts occur between large planetesimals of sizes up to proto-planets. Such events…
The formation of the Moon from the debris of a slow and grazing giant impact of a Mars-sized impactor on the proto-Earth (Cameron & Ward 1976, Canup & Asphaug 2001) is widely accepted today. We present an alternative scenario with a…
Recent three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical simulations have identified a disk wind by which gas materials are lost from the surface of a protoplanetary disk, which can significantly alter the evolution of the inner disk and the…
The giant impact hypothesis is the dominant theory explaining the formation of our Moon. However, its inability to produce an isotopically similar Earth-Moon system with correct angular momentum has cast a shadow on its validity.…
Disc winds and planet-disc interactions are two crucial mechanisms that define the structure, evolution and dispersal of protoplanetary discs. While winds are capable of removing material from discs, eventually leading to their dispersal,…
Dynamical scenarios of terrestrial planets formation involve strong perturbations of the inner part of the solar system by the giant-planets, leading to enhanced impact velocities and subsequent collisional erosion. We quantitatively…
Recent high-resolution simulations demonstrate that disks around primordial protostars easily fragment in the accretion phase before the protostars accrete less than a solar mass. To understand why the gravitational instability generally…
We present high resolution 3-D simulations of the planet-disc interaction using smoothed particle hydrodynamics, to investigate the possibility of driving eccentricity growth by this mechanism. For models with a given disc viscosity (\alpha…
Models of terrestrial planet formation predict that the final stages of planetary assembly, lasting tens of millions of years beyond the dispersal of young protoplanetary disks, are dominated by planetary collisions. It is through these…
Almost all meteorite impacts occur at oblique incidence angles, but the effect of impact angle on crater size is not well understood, especially for large craters. To improve oblique impact crater scaling, we present a suite of simulations…