Related papers: Explaining Neptune's Eccentricity
Despite the identification of a great number of Jupiter-like and Earth-like planets at close-in orbits, the number of "hot Neptunes" - the planets with 0.6-18 times of Neptune mass and orbital periods less than 3 days - turned out to be…
The planets of our solar system formed from a gas-dust disk. However, there are some properties of the solar system that are peculiar in this context. First, the cumulative mass of all objects beyond Neptune (TNOs) is only a fraction of…
We develop a phenomenological theory that aims to account for the origin of the large eccentricities of extrasolar planets and that of the small eccentricities in the solar system, the preference for apsidal alignment in non-resonant…
The distribution of eccentricities e of extra-solar planets with semi-major axes a > 0.2 AU is very uniform, and values for e are relatively large, averaging 0.3 and broadly distributed up to near 1. For a < 0.2 AU, eccentricities are much…
The observed large rates of spinning down after glitches in some radio pulsars has been previously explained in terms of a long-term spin-up behaviour of a superfluid part of the crust of neutron stars. We argue that the suggested mechanism…
The IceCube Collaboration has previously discovered a high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux using neutrino events with interaction vertices contained within the instrumented volume of the IceCube detector. We present a complementary…
Young exoplanets are attractive targets for atmospheric characterization to explore the early phase of planetary evolution and the surrounding environment. Recent observations of the 10 Myr young Neptune-sized exoplanet K2-33b revealed that…
The angle between the spin of a star and its planets' orbital planes traces the history of the planetary system. Exoplanets orbiting close to cool stars are expected to be on circular, aligned orbits because of strong tidal interactions…
We consider how superfluidity of dripped neutrons in the crust of a neutron star affects the frequencies of the crust's fundamental torsional oscillations. A nonnegligible superfluid part of dripped neutrons, which do not comove with…
We examine how the late divergent migration of Jupiter and Saturn may have perturbed the terrestrial planets. We identify six secular resonances between the nu_5 apsidal eigenfrequency of Jupiter and Saturn and the four eigenfrequencies of…
We derive the exact frame-dragging rate inside rotating neutron stars. This formula is applied to show that the frame-dragging rate monotonically decreases from the centre to the surface of the neutron star along the pole. In case of…
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has provided the first map of the high energy (~ 0.01 -- 1 PeV) sky in neutrinos. Since neutrinos propagate undeflected, their arrival direction is an important identifier for sources of high energy particle…
The existence of a nonzero permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron would reveal a new source of CP violation and shed light on the origin of the matter--antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. The sensitivity of current…
As first shown by Shvartsman (1970), a neutron star accreting close to the Eddington limit must acquire a positive charge in order for electrons and protons to move at the same speed. The resulting electrostatic field may contribute to…
The nucleus of M31 may be a thick eccentric disk, composed of stars traveling on nearly Keplerian orbits around a black hole or other dark compact object. This hypothesis reproduces most of the features seen in HST photometry of the center…
Neutron stars are strongly magnetized rotating compact objects. Therefore they also produce huge electric fields accelerating particles to ultra-relativistic energies. The simplest magnetic topology is a dipole traditionally located at the…
The origin of the highly eccentric, inclined, and resonance-locked orbit of Pluto has long been a puzzle. A possible explanation has been proposed recently [Malhotra, R., {\it Nature} 365:819-21 (1993)] which suggests that these…
We make preliminary estimates to assess whether the recently reported flyby anomaly can be attributed to dark matter interactions. We consider both elastic and exothermic inelastic scattering from dark matter constituents; for isotropic…
The origin of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays remains one of the central open questions in astroparticle physics. Recent measurements reveal anisotropies in arrival directions, a rigidity-dependent composition dominated by intermediate-mass…
The origin of a recently discovered close-in Neptune-mass planet around GJ436 poses a challenge to the current theories of planet formation. Based on the sequential accretion hypothesis and the standard theory of gap formation and orbital…