Related papers: The Stability Boundary of the Distant Scattered Di…
Molecular gas disks are generally Toomre stable ($Q_T>$1) and yet clearly gravitationally unstable to structure formation as evidenced by the existence of molecular clouds and ongoing star formation. This paper adopts a 3D perspective to…
A large sample of planet-planet scattering events for three planet systems with different orbital separations and masses is analyzed with a multiple regression model. The dependence of the time for the onset of instability on the masses of…
We consider particles with low free or proper eccentricity that are orbiting near planets on eccentric orbits. Via collisionless particle integration we numerically find the location of the boundary of the chaotic zone in the planet's…
On timescales that greatly exceed an orbital period, typical planetary orbits evolve in a stochastic yet stable fashion. On even longer timescales, however, planetary orbits can spontaneously transition from bounded to unbound chaotic…
Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are a transient population of small bodies with orbits near or in the terrestrial planet region. They represent a mid-stage in the dynamical cycle of asteroids and comets, which starts with their removal from the…
The Solar system beyond Neptune is believed to house a population of small primordial bodies left over from the planet formation process. The region up to heliocentric distance $\sim 50 AU$ (a.k.a. the Kuiper Belt) may be the source of the…
We consider the chaotic motion of low-mass bodies in two-body high-order mean-motion resonances with planets in model planetary systems, and analytically estimate the Lyapunov and diffusion timescales of the motion in multiplets of…
We report the results of dynamical simulations, covering Gyr timescales, of fictitious Scattered Disk Objects as a follow-up to an earlier study by Fern\'andez et al. (2004: {\it Icarus} {\bf 172}, 372). Our dynamical model is similar in…
We use a secular model to describe the non-resonant dynamics of trans-Neptunian objects in the presence of an external ten-earth-mass perturber. The secular dynamics is analogous to an "eccentric Kozai mechanism" but with both an inner…
This article reviews the different mechanisms affecting the orbits of trans-Neptunian objects, ranging from internal perturbations (planetary scattering, mean-motion resonances, secular effects) to external perturbations (galactic tides,…
We study the Kozai dynamics affecting the orbital evolution of transneptunian objects being captured or not in MMR with Neptune. We provide energy level maps of the type ({\omega},q) describing the possible orbital paths from Neptune up to…
The complex classification of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) that are captured in mean-motion resonances (MMRs) and the constraint of their multiple origins are two significant open problems concerning the Solar System. The case-by-case…
The orbital period ratios of neighbouring sub-Neptunes are distributed asymmetrically near first-order resonances. There are deficits of systems---"troughs" in the period ratio histogram---just short of commensurability, and…
Some principles in the distribution of Centaurs and the "Scattered Disk" objects, as well as the Kuiper belt objects for its semi-major axes, eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits have been investigated. It has been established,…
We study the final architecture of planetary systems that evolve under the combined effects of planet-planet and planetesimal scattering. Using N-body simulations we investigate the dynamics of marginally unstable systems of gas and ice…
Direct imaging surveys have found that long-period super-Jupiters are rare. By contrast, recent modeling of the widespread gaps in protoplanetary disks revealed by ALMA suggests an abundant population of smaller Neptune to Jupiter-mass…
It often seems as though papers bearing titles in the form of a question end with ambiguous answers. Here the situation is different: the outer Kuiper belt does have a definite future, although one of uncertain duration. Simulations provide…
The organization of the orbits of most minor bodies in the Solar system seems to follow random patterns, the result of billions of years of chaotic dynamical evolution. Much as heterogeneous orbital behaviour is ubiquitous, dynamically…
Numerical integrations of the Solar System reveal a remarkable stability of the orbits of the inner planets over billions of years, in spite of their chaotic variations characterized by a Lyapunov time of only 5 million years and the lack…
A condition upon which sporadic bursts (intermittent behaviour) of the relative energy become possible is derived for the motion in the chaotic layer around the separatrix of non-linear resonance. This is a condition for the existence of a…