Understanding the assembly of Kepler's compact planetary systems

The Kepler mission has recently discovered a number of exoplanetary systems, such as Kepler-11 and Kepler-32, in which ensembles of several planets are found in very closely packed orbits (often within a few percent of an AU of one another). These compact configurations present a challenge for traditional planet formation and migration scenarios. We present a dynamical study of the assembly of these systems, using an N-body method which incorporates a parametrized model of planet migration in a turbulent protoplanetary disc. We explore a wide parameter space, and find that under suitable conditions it is possible to form compact, close-packed planetary systems via traditional disc-driven migration. We find that simultaneous migration of multiple planets is a viable mechanism for the assembly of tightly-packed planetary systems, as long as the disc provides significant eccentricity damping and the level of turbulence in the disc is modest. We discuss the implications of our preferred parameters for the protoplanetary discs in which these systems formed, and comment on the occurrence and significance of mean-motion resonances in our simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Gate-controlled one-dimensional channel on the topological surface

We investigate the formation of the one-dimensional channels on the topological surface under the gate electrode. The energy dispersion of these channels is almost linear in the momentum with the velocity sensitively depending on the strength of the gate voltage. The energy is also restricted to be positive or negative depending on the strength of the gate voltage. Consequently, the local density of states near the gated region has an asymmetric structure with respect to zero energy. In the presence of the electron-electron interaction, the correlation effect can be tuned by the gate voltage. We also suggest a tunneling experiment to verify the presence of these bound states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Strong eigenfunction correlations near the Anderson localization transition

We study overlap of two different eigenfunctions as compared with self-overlap in the framework of an infinite-dimensional version of the disordered tight-binding model. Despite a very sparse structure of the eigenstates in the vicinity of Anderson transition their mutual overlap is still found to be of the same order as self-overlap as long as energy separation is smaller than a critical value. The latter fact explains robustness of the Wigner-Dyson level statistics everywhere in the phase of extended states. The same picture is expected to hold for usual d-dimensional conductors, ensuring the $s^{\beta}$ form of the level repulsion at critical point.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe