Formation of leading spiral arms in retrograde galaxy encounters

We study, theoretically and withN-body simulations, the formation of spiral structures in retrograde galaxy encounters. A one-armed leading spiral dominates in a disc if (i) the tidal perturbation from the retrograde companion is large enough, and (ii) the disc is surrounded by a massive halo. From the literature we find that very few spirals in a sample of galaxies with a large companion have leading spiral arms. A possible reason for this is that very few spiral galaxies have a halo with a larger mass than the disc mass.     

Monte Carlo Simulations of Oort Cloud Comets: the Influence of Mantle Blow-off on the Inclination Distribution of Jupiter Family

We have developed an efficient Monte Carlo method by which we can evaluate the evolution of comets. There are many poorly known evolutional parameters, and we have investigated the influence of these parameters on the final populations and the inclination distributions of short-period comets. We compare the observed and calculated inclination distributions of different comet populations and obtain a good fit for the inclinations of the Jupiter family comets by assuming a mantle blow-off and a sudden brightening of the comet when its perihelion distance is lowered in a major jump. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Why we study the geological record for evidence of the solar oscillation about the galactic midplane

The Solar System oscillates about the plane defined by the disk of matter in our Galaxy. This oscillatory motion gives rise to a substantial modulation in the tidally induced flux of Oort cloud comets. An observational determination of the quasi-periodicity of this motion carries with it significant information about the population, distributions, dynamics and origins of short-period and long-period comets. An additional incentive for emphasizing such a study is the information about dark disk matter that a period can yield. If dark disk matter is completely negligible, the amplitude of the solar motion will be sufficiently large that the peak-to-trough flux ratio will be ≈ 2.5 and the plane-crossing period will exceed 40 Myr. Dark disk matter comparable in mass to bright disk matter and distributed in any manner is inconsistent with K-dwarf distributions and can be rejected as a working hypothesis. But if a modest fraction of the disk matter is dark and distributed like the interstellar medium, as is consistent with limits deduced from K-giant and K-dwarf velocity distributions, the peak-to-trough flux ratio can increase to a factor of 4 even though the solar z amplitude is decreased. In that case the period can be as little as 30 Myr and the implied Oort population is smaller by a factor of 3. We should carefully reconsider the geological record as a potential discriminator of these options.     

Two multiderivate multistep (MDMS) integrators

A preliminary survey of multiderivative multistep integrators is carried out. It is found that all of them are much more accurate than the classical linear multistep methods, but most of them have poor stability. After parameter adjustment, two of them (called MDMS I and MDMS II by us) are competitive with or superior to the classical methods in some aspects, such as accuracy and stability. MDMS I behaves especially well in all the cases which have been studied.     

Statistics of three-body experiments: Escape energy,velocity and final binary eccentricity

The distribution of escape energy, escape velocity and final binary eccentricity in the breakup of a three-body system have been studied, using a recent survey of 25 000 numerical experiments. The dependence of these distributions on the initial parameters have been analysed and were found to agree well with analytical predictions in some cases. The escape velocity depends mainly on the total energy and angular momentum of the system, while the eccentricity is markedly different between planar and three-dimensional systems.     

Mapping the three-body system – decay time and reversibility

In this paper we carry out a quantitative analysis of the three-body systems and map them as a function of decaying time and initial configuration, look at this problem as an example of a simple deterministic system and ask to what extent the orbits are really predictable. We have investigated the behaviour of about 200 000 general Newtonian three-body systems using the simplest initial conditions. Within our resolution these cover all the possible states where the objects are initially at rest and have no angular momentum. We have determined the decay time-scales of the triple systems and show that the distribution of this parameter is fractal in appearance. Some areas that appear stable on large scales exhibit very narrow strips of instability and the overall pattern, dominated by resonances, reminds us of a traditional Maasai warrior shield. Also an attempt is made to recover the original starting configuration of the three bodies by backward integration. We find there are instances where the evolution to the future and to the past lead to different orbits, in spite of time symmetric initial conditions. This implies that even in simple deterministic systems there exists an arrow of time.     

Interplanetary propagation of relativistic solar protons

Particle fluxes and pitch angle distributions of relativistic solar protons at Earth's orbit have been determined by Monte Carlo calculations. The analysis covers two hours after the release of the particles from the Sun and total of 8 × 10⁶ particle trajectories were simulated. The pitch angle scattering was assumed to be isotropic and the scattering mean free path was varied from 0.1 to 4 AU.The intensity-time profiles after a delta-like injection from the Sun show that the interplanetary propagation is clearly non-diffusive at scattering mean-free paths above 0.5 AU. All pitch angle distributions have a steady minimum at 90 °, and they become similar about 20 min after the arrival of first particles.As an application, the solar injection profile and the interplanetary scattering mean-free path of particles that gave rise to the GLE on 7 May, 1978 were determined. In contrast to the values of 3–5 AU published by other authors, the average scattering mean-free path was found to be about 1 AU.     

Anisotropic gravitational radiation in the problems of three and four black holes

The momentum flux in merging binary black holes is rediscussed using the actual orbit integrations. The terminal velocity acquired by the centre of mass of the system is found to be greater than the estimate of Fitchett (1983) by a factor of 1.45. The actual value in km s^–1 is still uncertain but may be as high as 2000 km s^–1. The centre of mass velocity kick at a black hole merger is incorporated in the orbit integration of few black hole systems. Assuming that the symmetric break-up mode of such systems corresponds to the classical double radio sources, we determine that the centre of mass velocity kick can be about 1000 km s^–1 at most.     

Leading spiral arms,retrograde galaxy encounters and massive halos

We study, theoretically and with N-body simulations, the formation of spiral patterns in retrograde galaxy encounters. A one-armed leading spiral dominates in a disk if the tidal perturbation from the companion is large and the disk is surrounded by a massive halo. Otherwise, a trailing pattern forms. The leading arm is made up of particles in slightly elongated orbits whose turning points outline the arm. The arm rotates opposite to the disk rotation. We have found one spiral galaxy, NGC4622, with a leading arm near its nucleus. From the literature, we find that very few spirals, if any, in a sample of strongly perturbed galaxies have leading arms. A possible reason for this is that few spiral galaxies have a halo with larger mass than the disk within the visible disk.     

Orbits of short period comets captured from the Oort cloud

Oort cloud comets occasionally obtain orbits which take them through the planetary region. The perturbations by the planets are likely to change the orbit of the comet. We model this process by using a Monte Carlo method and cross sections for orbital changes, i.e. changes in energy, inclination and perihelion distance, in a single planet-comet encounter. The influence of all major planets is considered. We study the distributions of orbital parameters of observable comets, i.e. those which have perihelion distance smaller than a given value. We find that enough comets are captured from the Oort cloud in order to explain the present populations of short period comets. The median value of cos i for the Jupiter family is 0.985 while it is 0.27 for the Halley types. The results may explain the orbital features of short period comets, assuming that the active lifetime of a comet is not much greater than 400 orbital revolutions.