The Dynamical Evolution of Young Clusters. With a focus on the effects on planetary systems

Abstract: Stars form in clusters or groups. In these crowded environments, they are likely to experience encounters with one another. These encounters may perturb their planetary systems and cause the ejection of one or more planets. N-body simulations were performed to study the effect of encounters between stars on their planetary systems in young stellar clusters. Two categories of young clusters were modelled : clusters without gas (dry clusters) and clusters containing gas (embedded clusters). In both cases, it was found that a large majority of stars (85 - 95 %) experience at least one encounter with an other star in the first 10 Myr of the cluster evolution. Furthermore, between 5 % and 25 % of solar system-like planetary systems are affected by these encounters.