Astrophysics is an area concerning various physical ranging from planetary sized systems, to galactic scale systems and beyond, that intersects various disciplines such as Newtonian dynamics, relativistic physics and particle physics processes.
For our latest developments/activities in this area, please see the listing below at the end of this article.
An exoplanet is a planet outside the Solar System. In the Milky Way galaxy, it is expected that there are many billions of planets (at least one planet, on average, orbiting around each star, resulting in 100–400 billion exoplanets), with many more free-floating planetary-mass bodies orbiting the galaxy directly.
We study the long-term dynamics of known multi-planet systems. This allow us to test the accuracy of the orbital parameters' determinations, as well as to understand how these systems evolved. We also look for the stable zones in the gaps between already-known planets in order to determine where is it possible to locate Earth-like planets.
See here a movie made by the PhD Animation on "Exoplanets Explained", for a review on the main observational methods used to detect exoplanets.
There are at least 100 billion brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects in our Galaxy - objects that are not orbiting a star and have masses between that of Jupiter and of the lowest mass stars (~80 MJup). Several theories for their formation have been proposed, and could all as well be at work, but their relative importance is not known and is expected to vary with mass and environment.
P. Cunha and C. Herdeiro were invited speakers at the online workshop on numerical and analytical relativity (NAR-2024), organized by the Department of Applied Sciences, Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad (IIITA) during 20 - 22 March 2024. The video recorded lectures can be seen here.
Accretion within the innermost stable circular orbit: analytical thermodynamic solutions in the adiabatic limit
A. Mummery, and S. Balbus
| arXiv:2302.14437 [astro-ph.HE] |