Related papers: A comment on 'Accurate spin axes and solar system …
Rotational dynamics of the Earth, over geological timescales, have profoundly affected local and global climatic evolution, probably contributing to the evolution of life. To better retrieve the Earth's rotational history, and motivated by…
We present the results of relativistic smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of tidal disruptions of stars by rotating supermassive black holes, for a wide range of impact parameters and black hole spins. For deep encounters, we find…
Mars' asymmetric figure -- with two opposing equatorial elevations -- stemmed from a frozen tidal bulge raised by a primordial synchronous moon Nerio. Nerio's emergence, through in situ formation or by capture in the disk's remnants, and…
We present simulations of Triton's post-capture orbit that confirm the importance of Kozai-type oscillations in its orbital elements. In the context of the tidal orbital evolution model, these variations require average pericenter distances…
The dynamics of the solid crust + magnetic field lines of pulsars is a much debated issue, and remains unsettled after 50 years. Some pieces of evidence have emerged to complete and confirm theoretical calculations and expectations. We…
The zonal winds on the surfaces of giant planets vary with latitude. Jupiter and Saturn, for example, have several bands of alternating eastward (prograde) and westward (retrograde) jets relative to the angular velocity of their global…
In this review, I discuss just three aspects of the stability and evolution of galactic discs. (1) I first review our understanding of the bar instability and how it can be controlled. Disc galaxies in which the orbital speed does not…
The increasing number and variety of extrasolar planets illustrates the importance of characterizing planetary perturbations. Planetary orbits are typically described by physically intuitive orbital elements. Here, we explicitly express the…
We report direct evidence of a secondary flow excited by the Earth rotation in a water-filled spherical container spinning at constant rotation rate. This so-called {\it tilt-over flow} essentially consists in a rotation around an axis…
Very low-mass main-sequence stars reveal some curious trends in observed rotation period distributions that require abating the spin-down that standard rotational evolution models would otherwise imply. By dynamically coupling magnetically…
Einstein general theory of relativity (GTR) accounted well for the precession of the perihelion of planets and binary pulsars. While the ordinary Newton law of gravitation failed, a generalized version yields similar results. We have shown…
This report is a review of Darwin's classical theory of bodily tides in which we present the analytical expressions for the orbital and rotational evolution of the bodies and for the energy dissipation rates due to their tidal interaction.…
Contraction, expansion and despinning have been common in the past evolution of Solar System bodies. These processes deform the lithosphere until it breaks along faults. The type and orientation of faults are usually determined under the…
In the near-Earth asteroid population, binary and triple systems have been discovered with mutual orbits that have significant eccentricities as well as large semi-major axes. All known systems with eccentric orbits and all widely-separated…
Among the fundamental and most challenging problems of laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasma physics is to understand the relaxation processes of nearly collisionless plasmas toward quasi-stationary states; and the resultant states of…
A Hamiltonian model is constructed for the spin axis of a planet perturbed by a nearby planet with both planets in orbit about star. We expand the planet-planet gravitational potential perturbation to first order in orbital inclinations and…
LAGEOS is an accurately-tracked, dense spherical satellite covered with 426 retroreflectors. The tracking accuracy is such as to yield a medium term (years to decades) inertial reference frame determined via relatively inexpensive…
A widely considered characteristic of extra-solar planetary systems has been a seeming tendency for major axes of adjacent orbits to librate in stable configurations. Based on a new catalog of extra-solar planets (Butler et al. 2006) and…
I present results from the first global hydrodynamical simulations of the elliptical instability in a tidally deformed gaseous planet (or star) with a free surface. The elliptical instability is potentially important for tidal evolution of…
The recently discovered J0651+2844 is a detached, eclipsing white dwarf binary with an orbital period of 765 s. We investigate the prospects for the detection of gravitational radiation from this system and estimate the effect of the tidal…