Related papers: Rapid dynamical chaos in an exoplanetary system
A significant fraction of Kepler systems are closely-packed, largely coplanar and circular. We study the stability of a 6-planet system, Kepler-11, to gain insights on the dynamics and formation history of such systems. Using a technique…
Instabilities in compact planetary systems are generically driven by chaotic dynamics. This implies that an instability time measured through direct N-body integration is not exact, but rather represents a single draw from a distribution of…
In this paper on mean motion resonances in the Kuiper belt we consider effects on resonant bodies captured in an earlier migration by determining levels of chaos as a function of eccentricity, e, at the most stable orbital configuration. We…
Uncovering the formation process that reproduces the distinct properties of compact super-Earth exoplanet systems is a major goal of planet formation theory. The most successful model argues that non-resonant systems begin as resonant…
The dynamical evolution of the solar system is chaotic with a Lyapunov time of only $\sim$5 Myr for the inner planets. Due to the chaos it is fundamentally impossible to accurately predict the solar system's orbital evolution beyond…
This paper explores how orbits in a galactic potential can be impacted by large amplitude time-dependences of the form that one might associate with galaxy or halo formation or strong encounters between pairs of galaxies. A period of…
We study how close-in systems such as those detected by Kepler are affected by the dynamics of bodies in the outer system. We consider two scenarios: outer systems of giant planets potentially unstable to planet--planet scattering, and wide…
The planetary dynamics of $4/3$, $3/2$, $5/2$, $3/1$ and $4/1$ mean motion resonances is studied by using the model of the general three body problem in a rotating frame and by determining families of periodic orbits for each resonance.…
The orbits of stars in galaxies are generically chaotic: the chaotic behavior arises in part from the intrinsically grainy nature of a potential that is composed of point masses. Even if the potential is assumed to be smooth, however,…
Current planet formation theories rely on initially compact orbital configurations undergoing a (possibly extended) phase of giant impacts following the dispersal of the dissipative protoplanetary disk. The orbital architectures of observed…
There is a long tradition of studying chaotic trajectories in systems whose integrability is broken by means of an external perturbation. Here we explore a different route to chaos, in the dynamics of extended bodies, which arises due to…
Although the long-term numerical integrations of planetary orbits indicate that our planetary system is dynamically stable at least +/- Gyr, the dynamics of our Solar System includes both chaotic and stable motions: the large planets…
Context: Seasonal variations and climate stability of a planet are very sensitive to the planet obliquity and its evolution. This is of particular interest for the emergence and sustainability of land-based life, but orbital and rotational…
With $n$-body simulations we investigate the stability of tilted circumbinary planetary systems consisting of two nonzero mass planets. The planets are initially in circular orbits that are coplanar to each other, as would be expected if…
Radial velocity searches for exoplanets have detected many multi-planet systems around nearby bright stars. An advantage of this technique is that it generally samples the orbit outside of inferior/superior conjunction, potentially allowing…
Aims. To date, more than 600 multi-planetary systems have been discovered. Due to the limitations of the detection methods, our knowledge of the systems is usually far from complete. In particular, for planetary systems discovered with the…
We establish the criterion for chaos in three-planet systems, for systems similar to those discovered by the Kepler spacecraft. Our main results are as follows: (i) The simplest criterion, which is based on overlapping mean motion…
Motivated by the population of multi-planet systems with orbital period ratios 1<P2/P1<2, we study the long-term stability of packed two planet systems. The Hamiltonian for two massive planets on nearly circular and nearly coplanar orbits…
The distribution of period ratios for 580 known two-planet systems is apparently nonuniform, with several sharp peaks and troughs. In particular, the vicinity of the 2:1 commensurability seems to have a deficit of systems. Using Monte Carlo…
Celestial bodies approximated with rigid triaxial ellipsoids in a two-body system can rotate chaotically due to the time-varying gravitational torque from the central mass. At small orbital eccentricity values, rotation is short-term…