Physics and Astrophysics of Planetary Systems

The two-week school on "Physics and Astrophysics of Planetary Systems" took place on Feb. 18-29, 2008, in the wonderful setting of the Centre de Physique des Houches, a small, medium-altitude village near Chamonix, in the French Alps. Participants, coming from 20 countries, were mostly late-stage PhD students and post-docs, as well as researchers from various disciplines. As more and more " exoplanets are found (now nearly 400), including numerous multiple systems, the necessity of a connection with the solar system and its origin becomes more and more apparent. The scholl was therefore organized with the idea of putting exoplanetary systems and the solar system in a common perspective, including the early steps towards life. The chapters of this book contain full-lengh courses, seminars and contributed papers by the participant, on the following topics : finding and characterizing exoplanets, circumstellar disks and their transition towards planet formation, protoplanetary disks and the primitive solar nebula, solar system formation, exoplanetary atmospheresn complex molecules and habitability.