Stars, Planets, and Debris (StarPlanD): The formation of planets and planetary systems

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We propose a research program that is driven by basic questions concerning our origins: How do planets form? How is the Solar System a typical planetary system and how is it different? What does the makeup of meteorites tell us about the formation environment of the Solar System's planets? What types of events are critical for creating diversity among the thousand planetary systems now known? How does the star formation process itself and the early evolution of circumstellar discs affect the formation of planets? What does debris (asteroids, comets, and dust) tell us about planet building? Using a combination of observations and supercomputing, we will addresses these questions and explore links between the many stages of planet formation. Our investigations will cover a broad range of evolutionary epochs of planetary systems, from the formation and early evolution of circumstellar discs to the long-term orbital configurations of planets and their debris. Such a scope includes processes that range from setting the initial conditions for planet formation to determining what is typically observed. World-class observing facilities, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, will be used to reveal the structures of discs. High-performance computing will be used to tackle simulations of planetary orbital dynamics, planet-forming disc evolution, and the processing of solids found in meteorites. The research we propose in this NSERC grant aims to test some of the basic hypotheses among planet-formation paradigms.