Eric B. Ford

TL;DR: In this article, the initial planetary masses and orbits of three giant planets with and without residual gas disks were assigned in a realistic manner following the core accretion model of planet formation.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors characterize the dynamical properties of these candidate multi-planet systems and find that virtually all candidate systems are stable, as tested by numerical integrations that assume a nominal mass-radius relationship.

TL;DR: The detection of a planet whose orbit surrounds a pair of low-mass stars, comparable to Saturn in mass and size and on a nearly circular 229-day orbit around its two parent stars, suggests that the planet formed within a circumbinary disk.

TL;DR: Kepler spacecraft observations of a single Sun-like star are reported that reveal six transiting planets, five with orbital periods between 10 and 47 days and a sixth planet with a longer period, among the smallest for which mass and size have both been measured.

TL;DR: Spectroscopic metallicities of the host stars of 226 small exoplanet candidates discovered by NASA's Kepler mission are reported, finding that planets with radii less than four Earth radii form around host stars with a wide range of metallicities (but on average a metallicity close to that of the Sun), whereas large planets preferentially form around stars with higher metallicities.