Related papers: Orbital Evolution of Scattered Planets
The observational census of trans-Neptunian objects with semi-major axes greater than ~250 AU exhibits unexpected orbital structure that is most readily attributed to gravitational perturbations induced by a yet-undetected, massive planet.…
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…
We describe a fast, approximate method to characterize the orbits of satellites around a central binary in numerical simulations. A goal is to distinguish the free eccentricity -- random motion of a satellite relative to a dynamically cool…
We explore the possibility that the observed eccentricity distribution of extrasolar planets arose through planet-planet interactions, after the initial stage of planet formation was complete. Our results are based on ~3250 numerical…
The ejection of planets by the instability of planetary systems is a potential source of free-floating planets. We numerically simulate multi-planet systems to study the evolution process, the properties of surviving systems, and the…
The Kepler era of exoplanetary discovery has presented the Astronomical community with a cornucopia of planetary systems very different from the one which we inhabit. It has long been known that Jupiter plays a major role in the orbital…
In order to study the origin of the architectures of low mass planetary systems, we perform numerical surveys of the evolution of pairs of coplanar planets in the mass range $(1-4)\ \rmn{M}_{\oplus}.$ These evolve for up to $2\times10^7…
The modestly eccentric and non-coplanar orbits of the giant planets pose a challenge to solar system formation theories which generally indicate that the giant planets emerged from the protoplanetary disk in nearly perfectly circular and…
We examine the eccentricity evolution of a system of two planets locked in a mean motion resonance, in which the outer planet loses energy and angular momentum. The sink of energy and angular momentum could be either a gas or planetesimal…
Orbital eccentricity is one of the basic planetary properties, whose distribution may shed light on the history of planet formation and evolution. Here, in a series of works on Planetary Orbit Eccentricity Trends (dubbed POET), we study the…
The known population of exoplanets exhibits a much wider range of orbital eccentricities than Solar System planets and has a much higher average eccentricity. These facts have been widely interpreted to indicate that the Solar System is an…
The outer solar system exhibits an anomalous pattern of orbital clustering, characterized by an approximate alignment of the apsidal lines and angular momentum vectors of distant, long-term stable Kuiper belt objects. One explanation for…
We have developed a two-dimensional orbit averaged Fokker-Planck model of stellar clusters which expands on spherically symmetric one-dimensional models to include rotation and ellipticity. Physical effects such as collisions, finite…
We present a set of numerical simulations of the dynamical evolution of compact planetary systems migrating in a protoplanetary disk whose inner edge is sculpted by the interaction with the stellar magnetic field, as described in Yu et al.…
Determining the orbital eccentricity of an extrasolar planet is critically important for understanding the system's dynamical environment and history. However, eccentricity is often poorly determined or entirely mischaracterized due to poor…
The Kepler space mission has detected a large number of exoplanets in multiple transiting planet systems. Previous studies found that these Kepler multiple planet systems exhibit an intra-system uniformity, namely planets in the same system…
Planet--planet scattering is a major dynamical mechanism able to significantly alter the architecture of a planetary system. In addition to that, it may also affect the formation and retention of a debris disk by the system. A violent…
The long-term dynamical evolution of a Keplerian binary orbit due to the emission and absorption of gravitational radiation is investigated. This work extends our previous results on transient chaos in the planar case to the three…
The widely-separated, near-equal mass binaries hosted by the cold Classical Kuiper Belt are delicately bound and subject to disruption by many perturbing processes. We use analytical arguments and numerical simulations to determine their…
In this work, the orbital evolution of these objects that are located in the geostationary orbit (GEO) is analyzed. Knowing this, the possibility of using a solar sail is considered to help to clean the space environment. The main natural…