Related papers: Dynamics of Planetary Systems in Star Clusters
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…
Stars do not form in isolation but together with other stars, and often in a clustered environment. Depending on the initial conditions in these environments, such as initial density and substructure, the distances of encounters between…
Despite the discovery of thousands of exoplanets in recent years, the number of known exoplanets in star clusters remains tiny. This may be a consequence of close stellar encounters perturbing the dynamical evolution of planetary systems in…
We have simulated encounters between planetary systems and single stars in various clustered environments. This allows us to estimate the fraction of systems liberated, the velocity distribution of the liberated planets, and the separation…
The ejection of planets by the instability of planetary systems is a potential source of free-floating planets. We numerically simulate multi-planet systems to study the evolution process, the properties of surviving systems, and the…
The discovery of Jupiter-mass planets in close orbits about their parent stars has challenged models of planet formation. Recent observations have shown that a number of these planets have highly inclined, sometimes retrograde orbits about…
It appears that most stars are born in clusters, and that at birth most stars have circumstellar discs which are comparable in size to the separations between the stars. Interactions between neighbouring stars and discs are therefore likely…
The majority of discovered exoplanets have been observed orbiting field stars as opposed to within a star cluster. To determine whether the lack of observed exoplanets in star clusters is due to gravitational perturbations or observational…
Planet formation is generally described in terms of a system containing the host star and a protoplanetary disc, of which the internal properties (e.g. mass and metallicity) determine the properties of the resulting planetary system.…
This chapter reviews the dynamical processes in young stellar clusters. The accretion of gas by individual stars affects the dynamics of the cluster, and the masses of the stars. Dynamical mass segregation cannot explain the degree of mass…
We investigate how the formation and evolution of extrasolar planetary systems can be affected by stellar encounters that occur in the crowded conditions of a stellar cluster. Using plausible estimates of cluster evolution, we show how…
Most stars form in embedded clusters. Stellar flybys may affect the orbital architecture of the systems by exciting the eccentricity and causing dynamical instability. Since, incidentally, the timescale over which a cluster loses its…
Discoveries of exoplanets orbiting evolved stars motivate critical examinations of the dynamics of $N$-body systems with mass loss. Multi-planet evolved systems are particularly complex because of the mutual interactions between the…
A dynamically relaxed dense cluster comprised of about 40 stars (the so-called S-stars) inhabits the central region of the Galaxy. Their stars revolve around the Sgr A$^*$ massive object. To understand the dynamical evolution of planetary…
Only star clusters that are sufficiently compact and massive survive largely unharmed beyond 10 Myr. However, their compactness means a high stellar density which can lead to strong gravitational interactions between the stars. As young…
(Abridged) In planetary systems with two or more giant planets, dynamical instabilities can lead to collisions or ejections through strong planet--planet scattering. Previous studies for simple initial configurations with two equal-mass…
Most stars and their planets form in open clusters. Over 95 per cent of such clusters have stellar densities too low (less than a hundred stars per cubic parsec) to withstand internal and external dynamical stresses and fall apart within a…
The dynamical interactions of planetary systems may be a clue to their formation histories. Therefore, the distribution of these interactions provides important constraints on models of planet formation. We focus on each system's apsidal…
The evolution of star clusters is studied using N-body simulations in which the evolution of single stars and binaries are taken self-consistently into account. Initial conditions are chosen to represent relatively young Galactic open…
Stellar flybys in star clusters may perturb the evolution of young planetary systems in terms of disk truncation, planetary migration and planetary mass accretion. We investigate the feedback of a young planetary system during a single…