Related papers: Stepsize errors in the $N$-body problem: discernin…
Symplectic integrators are widely used for the study of planetary dynamics and other $N$-body problems. In a study of the outer Solar system, we demonstrate that individual symplectic integrations can yield biased errors in the semi-major…
Errors in numerical simulations of gravitating systems can be magnified exponentially over short periods of time. Numerical shadowing provides a way of demonstrating that the dynamics represented by numerical simulations are representative…
Computational efficiency demands discretised, hierarchically organised, and individually adaptive time-step sizes (known as the block-step scheme) for the time integration of N-body models. However, most existing N-body codes adapt…
Discrete numerical methods with finite time-steps represent a practical technique to solve initial-value problems involving nonlinear differential equations. These methods seem particularly useful to the study of chaos since no analytical…
In early Solar System numerical simulations, where chaos is a primary driver, it is difficult to explore parameter space in a systematic way. In such simulations, stable configurations are hard to come by, and often require special…
The possibility of measuring the post-Newtonian gravitoelectric correction to the orbital period of a test particle freely orbiting a spherically symmetric mass in the Solar System is analyzed. It should be possible, in principle, to detect…
Precise radial velocity measurements have led to the discovery of ~100 extrasolar planetary systems. We investigate the uncertainty in the orbital solutions that have been fit to these observations. Understanding these uncertainties will…
The SecularMultiple code, presented in two previous papers of this series, integrates the long-term dynamical evolution of multiple systems with any number of bodies and hierarchical structure, provided that the system is composed of nested…
We derive, and discuss the properties of, a symplectic map for the dynamics of bodies on nearly parabolic orbits. The orbits are perturbed by a planet on a circular, coplanar orbit interior to the pericenter of the parabolic orbit. The map…
We used recently produced Solar System ephemerides, which incorporate two years of ranging observations to the MESSENGER spacecraft, to extract the secular orbital elements for Mercury and associated uncertainties. As Mercury is in a stable…
The chaotic behaviour of the motion of the planets in our Solar System is well established. In this work to model a hypothetical extrasolar planetary system our Solar System was modified in such a way that we replaced the Earth by a more…
For studies of the long-term evolution of small Solar System objects, it is fundamental to add the Yarkovsky and Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effects in the dynamical model. Still, implementations of these effects in…
In this work, we present a symplectic integration scheme to numerically compute space debris motion. Such an integrator is particularly suitable to obtain reliable trajectories of objects lying on high orbits, especially geostationary ones.…
The $N$-body problem is of historical significance because it was the first implementation of the Newtonian dynamical laws for the description of our Solar System. Motivated by this, the project's goal is to revisit this problem for small…
Mercury's eccentricity is chaotic and can increase so much that collisions with Venus or the Sun become possible (Laskar, 1989, 1990, 1994, 2008, Batygin & Laughlin, 2008, Laskar & Gastineau, 2009). This chaotic behavior results from an…
Transit timing variations - deviations from strict periodicity between successive passages of a transiting planet - can be used to probe the structure and dynamics of multiple-planet systems. In this paper, we examine prospects for…
We present a simple choice of integration variables that can be used to exploit the near-integrable character of problems in celestial mechanics. The approach is based on the well-known principle of variation of parameters: instead of…
In dealing with nonlinear systems, it is common to use numerical solutions. Unlike the careful behavior towards the numerical results in chaotic regions, the validity of numerical results in regions of transient chaos might not always be…
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…
The three-body problem (3BP) poses a longstanding challenge in physics and celestial mechanics. Despite the impossibility of obtaining general analytical solutions, statistical theories have been developed based on the ergodic principle.…