Thesis

The orbital evolution of planetary systems: from formation to today

• Call:

  IDPASC Portugal - PHD Programme 2014

• Academic Year:

  2014 /2015

• Domain:

  Astrophysics

• Supervisor:

  Alexandre Correia

• Co-Supervisor:

  Vardan Adibekyan

• Institution:

  Universidade do Porto

• Host Institution:

  University of Aveiro

• Abstract:

  The field of extrasolar planets research is teaming with activity. Next year we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the first planet outside our system, and yet we count already over 1700 confirmed planets and hundreds of candidates to confirm. With a fast-growing pace and a bright future ahead guaranteed by large number of ongoing and planned projects, it presents itself as the astronomy topic of the change of the century. As the planetary zoology continue, several interesting trends appear. For instance, it is a well-established fact that stellar metallicity plays an important role on the formation of planets, especially for massive ones. Interestingly, metallicity also has a strong impact on the evolution and orbital architecture of the planets. Several remarkable observational results can be outlined from the recent studies, which are still waiting for a solid explanation: i) planets in the metal-poor systems form/evolve differently: they form farther out from their central star and/or they form later and do not migrate far, ii) low-metallicity stars have a deficit of eccentric planets between 0.1 and 1 AU when compared to their metal-rich counterparts, because of either a less effective planet-planet interactions or due to the self-shadowing of the disk by a rim located at the dust sublimation radius (∼0.1 AU). Along the same line, planet-planet and planet-disk gravitational interactions emerge as important orbit-shaping processes to be explored for a better understanding of the evolution of planets. With this application we propose to study the impact of stellar metallicity on the orbital evolution of planetary systems from the observational point of view and to develop new simulations in which we consider the effect of disk and/or a companion planet's presence on the planetary parameters. This PhD is a joint project between Universidade de Aveiro and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto (CAUP). The successful applicant will be involved in the activities of the two institutes, and collaborating closely with other researchers other than the proposed supervisors, such as Pedro Figueira.