DIX Planetary Science Seminar

Dynamical tracers of planets, such as their eccentricity, inclination, orbital obliquity, and spin rate, can be used to constrain and refine planet formation and evolution processes. I will begin the talk with mature planetary systems and show how the eccentricity and stellar obliquity of Warm Jupiters, giant planets with orbital periods of 8–200 days, can be used to constrain their origin channels. Using a catalog of Warm Jupiters discovered by TESS, we find Warm Jupiters are likely coming from multiple origin channels. I will then move on to younger planetary systems and discuss how debris disks can be used as a probe of young planetary system architectures. I will show if/how hidden planets could compromise our interpretation of the detected/assumed planet's properties. In most system configurations, fortunately, the debris disk feature is dominated by a single planet. Lastly, I will talk about protoplanets and how giant planets accrete via their circumplanetary disks, reflecting on their spin rates. For a weakly magnetized planet, I will show the maximum spin rate the planet can reach is regulated by its circumplanetary disk's boundary layer and the maximum value is only about 60–80% of the planet's breakup rate, in contrast to the classical picture.