Towards the Rosetta Stone of planet formation

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of studying very young transiting exoplanets to understand planet formation processes, proposing a survey to find and characterize such planets in young open clusters.

Contribution

It introduces a survey aimed at discovering and analyzing very young transiting exoplanets to constrain planet formation timescales and mechanisms.

Findings

Potential to determine planet formation timescales within 10 Myrs

Ability to distinguish formation mechanisms via planet radius

Framework for future observational studies

Abstract

Transiting exoplanets (TEPs) observed just about 10 Myrs after formation of their host systems may serve as the Rosetta Stone for planet formation theories. They would give strong constraints on several aspects of planet formation, e.g. time-scales (planet formation would then be possible within 10 Myrs), the radius of the planet could indicate whether planets form by gravitational collapse (being larger when young) or accretion growth (being smaller when young). We present a survey, the main goal of which is to find and then characterise TEPs in very young open clusters.