Understanding the behavior of Prometheus and Pandora     

Alison J. Farmer  Peter Goldreich 《Icarus》2006,180(2):403-411

We revisit the dynamics of Prometheus and Pandora, two small moons flanking Saturn's F ring. Departures of their orbits from freely precessing ellipses result from mutual interactions via their 121:118 mean motion resonance. Motions are chaotic because the resonance is split into four overlapping components. Orbital longitudes were observed to drift away from predictions based on Voyager ephemerides. A sudden jump in mean motions took place close to the time at which the orbits' apses were antialigned in 2000. Numerical integrations reproduce both the longitude drifts and the jumps. The latter have been attributed to the greater strength of interactions near apse antialignment (every 6.2 yr), and it has been assumed that this drift-jump behavior will continue indefinitely. We re-examine the dynamics of the Prometheus-Pandora system by analogy with that of a nearly adiabatic, parametric pendulum. In terms of this analogy, the current value of the action of the satellite system is close to its maximum in the chaotic zone. Consequently, at present, the two separatrix crossings per precessional cycle occur close to apse antialignment. In this state libration only occurs when the potential's amplitude is nearly maximal, and the “jumps” in mean motion arise during the short intervals of libration that separate long stretches of circulation. Because chaotic systems explore the entire region of phase space available to them, we expect that at other times the Prometheus-Pandora system would be found in states of medium or low action. In a low action state it would spend most of the time in libration, and separatrix crossings would occur near apse alignment. We predict that transitions between these different states can happen in as little as a decade. Therefore, it is incorrect to assume that sudden changes in the orbits only happen near apse antialignment.  相似文献   

Can gas dynamics in centres of galaxies reveal orbiting massive black holes?     

James Etherington  Witold Maciejewski 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,367(3):1003-1010

If supermassive black holes in centres of galaxies form by merging of black hole remnants of massive Population III stars, then there should be a few black holes of mass one or two orders of magnitude smaller than that of the central ones, orbiting around the centre of a typical galaxy. These black holes constitute a weak perturbation in the gravitational potential, which can generate wave phenomena in gas within a disc close to the centre of the galaxy. Here, we show that a single orbiting black hole generates a three-arm spiral pattern in the central gaseous disc. The density excess in the spiral arms in the disc reaches values of 3–12 per cent when the orbiting black hole is about 10 times less massive than the central black hole. Therefore, the observed density pattern in gas can be used as a signature in detecting the most massive orbiting black holes.  相似文献   

Angular-diameter distance estimates from the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect in hydrodynamical cluster simulations     

S. Ameglio  S. Borgani  A. Diaferio  K. Dolag 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,369(3):1459-1468

  相似文献   

Virtual Huanghe River System： Framework and Technology   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

LU Heli LIU Guifang SUN Jiulin 《中国地理科学(英文版)》2006,16(3):255-259

1 Introduction Huanghe (Yellow) River basin is located in 32°–42°N, 96°–119°E. The area of the catchment is more than 752,000km2. The river is 5464km long with a drop in elevation of 4830m. Among the whole area, the moun- tainous and stone area accounts for 29%, loess and hills area 46%, sandy area 11% and plain area 14%, respec- tively. Different natural landscapes exist in this area. The Huanghe River flows through the Loess Plateau, where the soil is eroded seriously (Wang, 2002;…  相似文献   

Opening angles, Lorentz factors and confinement of X-ray binary jets     

J. C. A. Miller-Jones  R. P. Fender  E. Nakar 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,367(4):1432-1440

We present a collation of the available data on the opening angles of jets in X-ray binaries, which in most cases are small (≲10°). Under the assumption of no confinement, we calculate the Lorentz factors required to produce such small opening angles via the transverse relativistic Doppler effect. The derived Lorentz factors, which are in most cases lower limits, are found to be large, with a mean >10, comparable to those estimated for active galactic nuclei (AGN) and much higher than the commonly assumed values for X-ray binaries of 2–5. Jet power constraints do not, in most cases, rule out such high Lorentz factors. The upper limits on the opening angles show no evidence for smaller Lorentz factors in the steady jets of Cygnus X-1 and GRS 1915+105. In those sources in which deceleration has been observed (notably  XTE J1550−564  and Cygnus X-3), some confinement of the jets must be occurring, and we briefly discuss possible confinement mechanisms. It is however possible that all the jets could be confined, in which case the requirement for high bulk Lorentz factors can be relaxed.  相似文献   

Photoevaporation of protoplanetary discs – I. Hydrodynamic models     

R. D. Alexander  C. J. Clarke  J. E. Pringle 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2006,369(1):216-228

  相似文献   

Colour variability of asteroids in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object Catalog     

Gy. M. Szabó  &#;. Ivezi&#; †  M. Juri&#;  R. Lupton  L. L. Kiss 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,348(3):987-998

  相似文献   

应用ATA的对数周期馈源方案于FAST的可能性探讨     

吴盛殷  熊继衮  吕善伟  张江林  徐祥  南仁东  金乘进 《天文学进展》2004,22(2):179-187

介绍应用于美国凤凰计划的Allen望远镜阵(ATA)的对数周期馈源(LPA)概况，初步给出此种馈源的基本参数及性能，仿真估算了其驻波比和方向图，并结合正在进行中的我国500m孔径球面射电望远镜(FAST)计划，探讨了应用这种宽带馈源的可能性及其限制。  相似文献   

Erratum: Towards cosmological concordance on galactic scales     

Frank C. van den Bosch  H. J. Mo  Xiaohu Yang 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2004,348(2):736-736

  相似文献   

Chemical alteration of tephra in the depositional environment: theoretical stability modelling     

A. M. Pollard  S. P. E. Blockley  K. R. Ward 《第四纪科学杂志》2003,18(5):385-394

The study of the chemical stability of vitreous material in aqueous media is well‐established. There has to date been little consideration of the implications of variations in the chemical durability of tephra in Quaternary tephrochronology. Chemical alteration can take the form of cationic leaching from the matrix, or complete destruction of the silica network, either of which could constrain the ability to chemically identify distal tephra. Here we apply established models of vitreous durability to the published chemical analyses of a large number of Icelandic tephras in order to predict their relative durabilities under equivalent conditions. This suggests that some important tephras have relatively poor chemical stability, and that rhyolitic tephras are, in general, more stable than basaltic. We conclude that tephras should be expected to show predictable differential chemical stability in the post‐depositional environment. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献