Related papers: The Warped Plane of the Classical Kuiper Belt
We report the statistical detection (at the >99% confidence level) of a population of 28th magnitude objects exhibiting proper motions of ~1 arcsecond per hour at quadrature in deep HST/WFPC2 images. The drift directions imply a…
We present here the first observationally based determination of the rate of occurrence of circumbinary planets. This is derived from the publicly available Kepler data, using an automated search algorithm and debiasing process to produce…
Axisymmetric disks of eccentric Kepler orbits are vulnerable to an instability which causes orbits to exponentially grow in inclination, decrease in eccentricity, and cluster in their angle of pericenter. Geometrically, the disk expands to…
We study the secular evolution of a particle in deep mean motion resonance (MMR) with a planet in the planar elliptic restricted three body problem. We do not consider any restriction neither in the planet's eccentricity $e_p$ nor in the…
We present the discovery and initial physical and dynamical characterization of the object 2003 UB313. The object is sufficiently bright that for all reasonable values of the albedo it is certain to be larger than Pluto. Pre-discovery…
A number of authors have proposed that the statistically significant orbital alignment of the most distant Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) is evidence of an as-yet undetected planet in the outer solar system, now referred to colloquially a…
The parameters of an axisymmetric model for the gravitational potential of the Galaxy have been refined. The basic curve of the Galaxy's rotation in a distance interval of $R:0-190$ kpc was constructed using the velocities of masers,…
We modeled the 3-D structure of the Kuiper Belt dust cloud at four different dust production rates, incorporating both planet-dust interactions and grain-grain collisions using the collisional grooming algorithm. Simulated images of a model…
M giants are among the longest-period pulsating stars which is why their studies were traditionally restricted to analyses of low-precision visual observations, and more recently, accurate ground-based data. Here we present an overview of M…
The $Kepler$ $orbits$ form a 3-parameter family of $unparametrized$ plane curves, consisting of all conics sharing a focus at a fixed point. We study the geometry and symmetry properties of this family, as well as natural 2-parameter…
We have performed a survey of the Kuiper belt covering ~ 1/3 a square degree of the sky using Suprime-cam on the Subaru telescope, to a limiting magnitude of m(R)~ 26.8 (50% threshold) and have found 36 new KBOs. We have confirmed that the…
The link between the dynamical evolution of the giant planets and the Kuiper Belt orbital structure can provide clues and insight about the dynamical history of the Solar System. The classical region of the Kuiper Belt has two populations…
The most distant Kuiper belt objects appear to be clustered in longitude of perihelion and in orbital pole position. To date, the only two suggestions for the cause of these apparent clusterings have been either the effects of observational…
Aims. We study a subset of the planetary population characterized both by HARPS and Kepler surveys. We compare the statistical properties of planets in systems with m.sin i >5-10 M_Earth and R>2 R_Earth. If we assume that the underlying…
The Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES) discovered hundreds of Kuiper Belt objects from 1998-2005. Follow-up observations yielded 304 objects with good dynamical classifications (Classical, Scattered, Centaur, or 16 mean-motion resonances with…
Non-relativistic particles that are effectively confined to two dimensions can in general move on curved surfaces, allowing dynamical phenomena beyond what can be described with scalar potentials or even vector gauge fields. Here we…
Mercury is expected to deviate from the classical Cassini state since this state is defined for a uniformly precessing rigid planet. We develop an extended Cassini state model that includes the variations (or nutations) in obliquity and…
(Abridged) The solar system gas giant planets are oblate due to their rapid rotation. A measurement of the planet's projected oblateness would constrain the planet's rotational period. Planets that are synchronously rotating with their…
Periodic orbit action correlations are studied for the piecewise linear, area-preserving Baker map. Semiclassical periodic orbit formulae together with universal spectral statistics in the corresponding quantum Baker map suggest the…
This paper reviews coagulation models for planet formation in the Kuiper Belt, emphasizing links to recent observations of our and other solar systems. At heliocentric distances of 35-50 AU, single annulus and multiannulus planetesimal…