Lonely Planets and Lightweight Asteroids: A Statistical Mechanics Model for the Planetary Problem

In this paper we propose a notion of stability, which we call $$\varepsilon -N$$ ε - N -stability, for systems of particles interacting via Newton’s gravitational potential, and orbiting a much bigger object. For these systems the usual thermodynamical stability condition, ensuring the possibility to perform the thermodynamical limit, fails, but one can use as relevant parameter the maximum number of particles N that guarantees the $$\varepsilon -N$$ ε - N -stability. With some judicious but not particularly optimized estimates, borrowed from the classical theory of equilibrium statistical mechanics, we show that our model has a good fit with the data observed in the Solar System, and it gives a reasonable interpretation of some of its global properties.

Normal form for lower dimensional elliptic tori in Hamiltonian systems

<abstract><p>We give a proof of the convergence of an algorithm for the construction of lower dimensional elliptic tori in nearly integrable Hamiltonian systems. The existence of such invariant tori is proved by leading the Hamiltonian to a suitable normal form. In particular, we adapt the procedure described in a previous work by Giorgilli and co-workers, where the construction was made so as to be used in the context of the planetary problem. We extend the proof of the convergence to the cases in which the two sets of frequencies, describing the motion along the torus and the transverse oscillations, have the same order of magnitude.</p></abstract>