Dynamical evolution of extrasolar planetary systems

Abstract

To date, more than 130 extrasolar planets around main sequence stars are revealed mainly by the Doppler radial velocity measurements. Due to the observational biases, most of the detected planets are moving in orbits close to the host stars, with some in highly eccentric orbits. Dynamical processes during the late stage of planet formation are important to account for the present orbital properties. These processes include: planet migrations and resonance trappings caused by gravitational interactions between protostellar disk and planets, dynamical scattering due to interactions between planets, etc. In this paper, we review the major effects of these dynamical processes on the orbital characteristics of the planet systems.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html