Visitor Center of the Nice Team Of Planetology

Welcome to the Visitor Center of the Team of Planteology of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (OCA). This program has obtained a financial support from the Program "Bonus Qualité Recherche" (BQR) 2006 of OCA.

The objective of the program is to create a "Pole of Theoretical Planetology" in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (PACA). The program is focused on the detection and study of extra-solar planets (exo-planets), protoplanetary disks, and on the formationand evolution of planetary systems.

Details of the research conducted by the team can be found on the Main Page of the Group of Planetology. We encourage any researcher interested in visiting us to contact a team member (contact information on personal web pages; links are on the main page of the group).

Our Scientific Program: it covers all the critical phases of planetary system formation. It is composed of several interrelated aspects:

(i) Phyiscal evolution of protoplanetary disks;
(ii) planetesimal growth by collisional accretion;
(iii) disk-planet interaction;
(iv) late evolution leading to the current orbital structure of our Solar System;
(v) collisional evolution of small body populations;
(vi) origin of the orbital properties of exo-planets;
(vii) internal struccture of Jupiter, Saturn and Hot-Jupiters;
(viii) detection of exo-planets by the transit method.

Some of our results have been the subject of press releases (see "Communiqués de Presse de l'OCA").

Here is a list of past, present and future visitors:

Period	Visitor Name	Contact	Scientific Activity	Link (articles)
Jan. 6-Apr. 6, 2007	Derek C. Richardson (Univ. Maryland, USA)	P. Michel	N-body simulations of catastrophic disruptions
March 2007 (1 week)	Lucio Mayer (ETH, Zurich, Switzerland)	A. Morbidelli	Simulations of protoplanetary disk evolution
Feb. 2007 (1 week)	Amara Graps (IAS Roma, Italy)	A. Morbidelli	Origin of Water on Earth
Jan. 2006 (2 weeks)	Alice Quillen (Univ. Rochester, USA)	A. Morbidelli	Collisional evolution of debris disks
Dec. 22 2006-Jan. 5, 2007	Shinsuke Abe (Univ. Kobe, Japan)	P. Michel	Impact history of the asteroid Itokawa
Nov. 2006 (1 week)	Francesco Marzari (Univ. Padova, Italy)	H. Scholl	Disks of planetesimals
Oct. 14-Nov. 12, 2006	Keith Holsapple (Univ. Washington, USA)	P. Michel	Tidal disruption: theory for ellipsoids with cohesion
October 2006 (1 week)	Willy Kley (Univ. Tubigen, Germany)	A. Morbidelli	Planetary Migration
Aug. - Sept. 2006 (1 month)	Masahiro Ikoma (Tokyo Technology Institute, Japan)	T. Guillot	Planetary formation, extrasolar planets
June 13-July 15, 2006	Keith Holsapple (Univ. Washington, USA)	P. Michel	Impact processes - physical properties of small bodies
June 1-30, 2006	Hal Levison (SWRI, USA)	A. Morbidelli	Dynamics of planetary systems and small bodies	Levison & Morbidelli, astro-ph
Apr. 2006 (1 week)	Richard P. Nelson (Queen Mary, London, UK)	A. Morbidelli	Planetary Migration
Nov. 17-27, 2005	Doug Lin (Univ. Santa Cruz, USA)	T. Guillot	Planetary formation, extrasolar planets
June 15-July 15 2005	Keith Holsapple (Univ. Washington, USA)	P. Michel	Tidal disruption: theory for cohesionless ellipsoid	Holsapple & Michel, 2006, Icarus 183
Apr. 15-May 10, 2005	Shigeru Ida (Tokyo Technology Institute, Japan)	T. Guillot	Planetary accretion, extrasolar planets	Ogihara et al., astro-ph
April 15-May 1st, 2005	Masahiro Ikoma (Tokyo Technology Institute, Japan)	T. Guillot	Planetary formation, extrasolar planets