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Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 011101 (2002) [4 pages]

Statistical Theory of Asteroid Escape Rates

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Charles Jaffé1,2,3, Shane D. Ross1,2, Martin W. Lo1,2, Jerrold Marsden1, David Farrelly4, and T. Uzer1,5
1Control and Dynamical Systems Division 107-81, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125
2Navigation and Flight Mechanics, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California 91109-8099
3Department of Chemistry, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-6045
4Department of Chemistry, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322-0300
5Center for Nonlinear Sciences and School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0430

Received 1 February 2002; published 12 June 2002

See accompanying Physics Focus

Transition states in phase space are identified and shown to regulate the rate of escape of asteroids temporarily captured in circumplanetary orbits. The transition states, similar to those occurring in chemical reaction dynamics, are then used to develop a statistical semianalytical theory for the rate of escape of asteroids temporarily captured by Mars. Theory and numerical simulations are found to agree to better than 1%. These calculations suggest that further development of transition state theory in celestial mechanics, as an alternative to large-scale numerical simulations, will be a fruitful approach to mass transport calculations.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.011101
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.011101
PACS:
96.35.-j, 05.45.-a, 82.20.Db, 95.10.Ce
 
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