The birth environment of planetary systems

TL;DR

This paper reviews how the environment of star-forming regions influences planet formation and stability, considering effects like stellar interactions, radiation, and dynamical encounters, with implications for the Solar System's origins.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of environmental processes affecting planet formation in star clusters, integrating observations and theories for the first time.

Findings

Protoplanetary discs can be truncated or destroyed by stellar interactions.

Dynamical encounters can alter planetary orbits.

Star-forming environment impacts planet formation and stability.

Abstract

Star and planet formation are inextricably linked. In the earliest phases of the collapse of a protostar a disc forms around the young star and such discs are observed for the first several million years of a star's life. It is within these circumstellar, or protoplanetary, discs that the first stages of planet formation occur. Recent observations from ALMA suggest that planet formation may already be well under way after only 1 Myr of a star's life. However, stars do not form in isolation; they form from the collapse and fragmentation of giant molecular clouds several parsecs in size. This results in young stars forming in groups - often referred to as 'clusters'. In these star-forming regions the stellar density is much higher than the location of the Sun, and other stars in the Galactic disc that host exoplanets. As such, the environment where stars form has the potential to influence the planet formation process. In star-forming regions, protoplanetary discs can be truncated or destroyed by interactions with passing stars, as well as photoevaporation from the radiation fields of very massive stars. Once formed, the planets themselves can have their orbits altered by dynamical encounters - either directly from passing stars or through secondary effects such as the Kozai-Lidov mechanism. In this contribution, I review the different processes that can affect planet formation and stability in star-forming regions. I discuss each process in light of the typical range of stellar densities observed for star-forming regions. I finish by discussing these effects in the context of theories for the birth environment of the Solar System.