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Session 15 -- Solar and Solar-System Physics

Oral presentation, Monday, 10:30-12:00, Dwinelle 145 Room

[15.04] Chaos in the Damped 3-Body Problem

While studying the behaviour of small bodies migrating due to gas drag in the solar nebula, we encountered a new form of chaotic instability for bodies trapped in mean motion resonances. A period doubling transition to chaos is observered to occur as the orbital decay rate increases. This transition can occur well outside of the previously described resonance overlap region (Wisdom 1980, Astron. J. 85, 1122-1133, Duncan et al.\ 1989, Icarus 82, 402-418), and occurs at larger drag rates for resonances further from the secondary. Closer examination shows that only resonances which can become overstable can undergo this transition.

This work was supported in part by the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program under Grant NAGW-1107.

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