相关论文: Pervasive Orbital Eccentricities Dictate the Habit…
Transiting extrasolar planets provide an opportunity to study the mass-radius relation of planets as well as their internal structure. The existence of a secondary eclipse enables further study of the thermal properties of the the planet by…
The dynamic nature of life's ability to thrive in diverse and changing planetary environments suggests that habitability and survival depend on the evolutionary path and life adaptation to environmental conditions. Here we explore such…
This paper explores the stability of an Earth-like planet orbiting a solar mass star in the presence of an outer-lying intermediate mass companion. The overall goal is to estimate the fraction of binary systems that allow Earth-like planets…
With n-body simulations, we model terrestrial circumbinary planet (CBP) formation with an initial surface density profile motivated by hydrodynamic circumbinary gas disc simulations. The binary plays an important role in shaping the initial…
We develop an idealized dynamical model to predict the typical properties of outer extrasolar planetary systems, at radii beyond 5 AU. Our hypothesis is that dynamical evolution in outer planetary systems is controlled by a combination of…
Within the next few years, the first Earth-mass planets will be discovered around other stars. Some of those worlds will certainly lie within the classical "habitable zone" of their parent stars, and we will quickly move from knowing of no…
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 currently feasible method of detection of Earth-mass planets is transit photometry, with detection probability decreasing with a planet's distance from the star. The existence or otherwise of short-period terrestrial planets will tell…
The discovery of many giant planets in close-in orbits and the effect of planetary and stellar tides in their subsequent orbital decay have been extensively studied in the context of planetary formation and evolution theories. Planets…
The climate of a terrestrial exoplanet is controlled by the type of host star, the orbital configuration and the characteristics of the atmosphere and the surface. Many rocky exoplanets have higher eccentricities than those in the Solar…
The satellites of extrasolar planets (exomoons) have been recently proposed as astrobiological targets. Since giant planets in the habitable zone are thought to have migrated there, it is possible that they may have captured a former…
The discovery of terrestrial exoplanets is uncovering increasingly diverse architectures. Of particular interest are those systems that contain exoplanets at a variety of star-planet separations, allowing direct comparison of exoplanet…
The population of known extrasolar planets includes giant and terrestrial planets that closely orbit their host star. Such planets experience significant tidal distortions that can force the planet into synchronous rotation. The combined…
Roughly half of Solar-type planet hosts have stellar companions, so understanding how these binary companions affect the formation and evolution of planets is an important component to understanding planetary systems overall. Measuring the…
The equilibrium rotation of tidally evolved "Earth-like" extra-solar planets is often assumed to be synchronous with their orbital mean motion. The same assumption persisted for Mercury and Venus until radar observations revealed their true…
Observations of exoplanets have revealed that systems with planets on closely-spaced orbits are common, which motivates the question "How closely can planets orbit to one another and still be dynamically-stable for very long times?". To…
Having a massive moon has been considered as a primary mechanism for stabilized planetary obliquity, an example of which being our Earth. This is, however, not always consistent with the exoplanetary cases. This article details the…
Stellar radiation has conservatively been used as the key constraint to planetary habitability. We review here the effects of tides, exerted by the host star on the planet, on the evolution of the planetary spin. Tides initially drive the…
Compact binaries with orbital periods shorter than about 7 days show an absence of transiting planets, a feature known as the ``circumbinary planet desert". The physical mechanism behind this desert remains unclear. We investigate its…
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…