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In spite of planetary resonances being a common dynamical mechanism acting on planetary systems, no general model exists for describing their properties, particularly for commensurabilities of any order and arbitrary values of the…
An episode of dynamical instability is thought to have sculpted the orbital structure of the outer solar system. When modeling this instability, a key constraint comes from Jupiter's fifth eccentric mode (quantified by its amplitude M55),…
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…
Searches for extrasolar planets have uncovered an astonishing diversity of planetary systems, yet the frequency of solar system analogs remains unknown. The gravitational microlensing planet search method is potentially sensitive to…
The formation of the solar system's giant planets predated the ultimate epoch of massive impacts that concluded the process of terrestrial planet formation. Following their formation, the giant planets' orbits evolved through an episode of…
Extrasolar systems with planets on eccentric orbits close to or in mean-motion resonances are common. The classical low-order resonant Hamiltonian expansion is unfit to describe the long-term evolution of these systems. We extend the…
Following the general numerical analysis of Melita and Woolfson (1996), I showed in a recent paper that a restricted, planar, circular planetary system consisting of Sun, Jupiter and Saturn would be captured in a near (2:1) resonance when…
The recently discovered planetary system HD45364 which consists of a Jupiter and Saturn mass planet is very likely in a 3:2 mean motion resonance. The standard scenario to form planetary commensurabilities is convergent migration of two…
A significant fraction of hot Jupiters have orbital axes misaligned with their host stars' spin axes. The large stellar obliquities of these giants have long been considered potential signatures of high-eccentricity migration, which is…
We investigate the secular dynamics of a planetary system composed of the parent star and two massive planets in mutually inclined orbits. The dynamics are investigated in wide ranges of semi-major axes ratios (0.1-0.667), and planetary…
A considerable fraction of multi-planet systems discovered by the observational surveys of extrasolar planets reside in mild proximity to first-order mean motion resonances. However, the relative remoteness of such systems from nominal…
Many features of the outer solar system are replicated in numerical simulations if the giant planets undergo an orbital instability that ejects one or more ice giants. During this instability, Jupiter and Saturn's orbits diverge, crossing…
Implications of the recently discovered systematic abundance difference between the Sun and two collections of `solar twins' are discussed. The differences can be understood as an imprint on the abundances of the solar convection zone…
Despite decades of effort, the mechanisms by which the spin axis of a star and the orbital axes of its planets become misaligned remain elusive. Particularly, it is of great interest whether the large spin-orbit misalignments observed are…
The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…
The significant orbital eccentricities of most giant extrasolar planets may have their origin in the gravitational dynamics of initially unstable multiple planet systems. In this work, we explore the dynamics of two close planets on…
More than two dozen short-period Jupiter-mass gas giant planets have been discovered around nearby solar-type stars in recent years, several of which undergo transits, making them ideal for the detection and characterization of their…
Seismology applied to giant planets could drastically change our understanding of their deep interiors, as it has happened with the Earth, the Sun, and many main-sequence and evolved stars. The study of giant planets' composition is…
Due to the chaotic nature of the Solar System, the question of its long-term stability can only be answered in a statistical sense, for instance, based on numerical ensemble integrations of nearby orbits. Destabilization of the inner…
We present the secular theory of coplanar $N$-planet system, in the absence of mean motion resonances between the planets. This theory relies on the averaging of a perturbation to the two-body problem over the mean longitudes. We expand the…