Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Jun 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004aipc..713...17j&link_type=abstract
THE SEARCH FOR OTHER WORLDS: Fourteenth Astrophysics Conference. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 713, pp. 17-26 (2004).
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
3
Extrasolar Planetary Systems
Scientific paper
While the study of extrasolar planetary systems has made astonishing progress during the last decade we are very much at the beginning of this new topic. Our study so far has only been sensitive to gas giant extrasolar planets. The 110 or so that we have discovered probably represent the relatively close-in subset of the population of gas giant planets. Here we consider some of the questions that arise from the study of the properties of this subset. In particular we focus on the semimajor axis of extrasolar planets. Values of semimajor axis are a key parameter because observationally they are well determined and theoretically they are a key test of planet formation and migration. While many features of the semimajor axis distributions are well produced by models, features such as the apparent drop in eccentrities and metallicities towards large values of semimajor axis are not yet reproduced by simulations. A full understanding of the statistics of extrasolar planets awaits the discovery and study of a much broader range and larger sample of planets as well as continued intensive work on numerical simulations to produce more physical models of formation, migration and interaction.
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