Related papers: Ringworlds and Dyson spheres can be stable
Late in the gaseous phase of a protostellar disk, centimeter-sized bodies probably settle into a thin ``dust layer'' at the midplane. A velocity difference between the dust layer and the gas gives rise to turbulence, which prevents further…
The ejecta discharged by impacting meteorites can redistribute a planetary ring's mass and angular momentum. This `ballistic transport' of ring properties instigates a linear instability that could generate the 100--1000-km undulations…
The three-planet extrasolar system of HD 181433 has been detected with HARPS. The best-fit solution, announced by the discovery team, describes a highly unstable, self-disrupting configuration. In fact, a narrow observational window, only…
One of the outstanding problems of classical celestial mechanics was the restricted 3-body prob- lem, in which a planetoid of small mass is subject to the Newtonian attraction of two celestial bodies of large mass, as it occurs, for…
Recently, Steinberg used discrete Morse theory to give a new proof of a theorem of Symonds that the orbit space of the poset of nontrivial $p$-subgroups of a finite group is contractible. We extend Steinberg's argument in two ways, covering…
Irregular structure in planetary rings is often attributed to the intrinsic instabilities of a homogeneous state undergoing Keplerian shear. Previously these have been analysed with simple hydrodynamic models. We instead employ a kinetic…
In the context of a special class of tensor-multi-scalar theories of gravity for which the target-space metric admits an isometry under which the theory is invariant, we present rotating vacuum solutions, namely with no matter fields. These…
Context: As a result of Titan's migration and Saturn's probable capture in secular spin-orbit resonance, recent works show that Saturn's obliquity could be steadily increasing today and may reach large values in the next billions of years.…
I report on recent work concerning the existence and stability of self-gravitating spheres with anisotropic pressure. After presenting new exact solutions, Chandrasekhar's variational formalism for radial perturbations is generalized to…
The diamagnetism of ice particles of the rings can explain their separation and the sharp edges of the rings. The existing gravitational theories of the origin of rings can't explain these observed facts. Taking into account the magnetic…
We present new results concerning the existence of static, electrically charged, perfect fluid spheres that have a regular interior and are arbitrarily close to a maximally charged black-hole state. These configurations are described by…
We consider the motion of massive and massless particles in a five-dimensional spacetime with a compactified extra-dimensional space where a black hole is localized, i.e., a caged black hole spacetime. We show the existence of circular…
The five libration points of a sun-planet system are stable or unstable fixed positions at which satellites or asteroids can remain fixed relative to the two orbiting bodies. A moon orbiting around the planet causes a time-dependent…
Recently there has been much interest in the spatial distribution of light scalar dark matter, especially axions, throughout the universe. When the local gravitational interactions between the scalar modes are sufficiently rapid, it can…
We make a detailed study of boson star configurations in Jordan--Brans--Dicke theory, studying both equilibrium properties and stability, and considering boson stars existing at different cosmic epochs. We show that boson stars can be…
In the initial stages of its development, atomic theory had to bypass the laws of classical electromagnetism in an ad hoc manner in order to explain the stability of atoms. In quantum mechanics, however, the classical theory may find again…
In this paper, we introduce a simplified model to understand the location of Saturn's F ring. The model is a planar restricted five-body problem defined by the gravitational field of Saturn, including its second zonal harmonic $J_2$, the…
We present results of extensive numerical studies of the stability of non-interacting particles in the planetary systems of stars Upsilon Andromedae, GJ 876, 47 UMa, and 55 Cancri. We discuss the possibility of the existence of islands of…
In light of the recent work by Sen and Gibbons, we present a phase-plane analysis on the cosmology containing a rolling tachyon field in a potential resulted from string theory. We show that there is no stable point on the phase-plane,…
We revisit the regular black hole found by Hayward in $4-$dimensional static, spherically symmetric spacetime. To find a possible source for such a spacetime we resort to the non-linear electrodynamics in general relativity. It is found…