Institute for Advanced Study Informal Astrophysics Seminar

The star formation process occurs in star clusters and stellar associations, following the collapse of the giant molecular cloud. As a byproduct, planets form in protoplanetary disk within 10 Myr after the star formation process. Before the dissolution of the parental cluster, planetary systems are exposed in a high stellar density environment, subject to frequent perturbations from stellar encounters, which in turn lead to the excitation of orbital eccentricities and inclinations, and also planet ejections. The memory of orbital eccentricity/inclination excitation can be preserved long after the dissolution of the parental cluster, and therefore field planetary systems may bear signatures from their parental clusters. In this talk, I will present several signatures of parental clusters on field planetary systems from numerical simulations. These signatures provide useful clues to constrain the birth environment of the field planetary systems, including our Solar System. I will also show that the diversity of exoplanets may be a consequence of their early evolution in star clusters.