Circumstellar discs, a natural byproduct of the formation of low-mass stars and substellar objects, are crucial in setting the conditions and timescale for planet formation. These discs have been observed around free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPMOs) at young ages. We present the near- and mid-infrared spectra of eight young FFPMOs with masses of 5–10 MJup, obtained using the NIRSpec...
A key step in the formation of planetary-mass objects (PMO's, objects <20 M_J) is the disc locking phase, where the object's rotation is regulated by magnetic coupling with its ionized circumplanetary disc. By dumping excess angular momentum into the disc and allowing further accretion, disc locking is responsible for setting both the rotation and mass distribution of PMO's. Due to decreasing...
Emission lines tracing active accretion have been detected in the youngest directly imaged exoplanets (e.g., PDS 70 b and c) and their free-floating counterparts. The profiles of these lines can provide valuable insights into the physics and kinematics of gas accretion, a process believed to determine the final spin of planetary-mass objects, their early physical evolution (hot- vs. cold-start...
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed that free-floating planetary-mass objects (FFPMOs) often host substantial dusty disks. A key unanswered question is whether these objects formed in isolation or were dynamically ejected from planetary systems. We test the ejection hypothesis with 3D hydrodynamical simulations of a giant planet, hosting a circumplanetary disk (CPD), ejected via...