Protostellar Disks, Planet Traps, and the Origins of Exoplanetary Systems

Abstract The mass-semimajor axis diagram for exoplanets is populated by at least three distinct planetary populations: hot Jupiters at small orbital radii, more massive Jovian planets gathered at about 1 AU, and a rapidly growing population of SuperEarths at short periods. Our work shows that low mass and rapidly migrating planetary cores get trapped at disk inhomogeneities, where strong density or thermal gradients exist …