A STUDY OF THE CLOSE APPROACH BETWEEN A PLANET AND A CLOUD OF PARTICLES

摘要

This paper studies the effects of a close approach between a planet and a cloud of particles. It is assumed that the maneuver is planar and that the particles that belong to the cloud have a uniform distribution of semi-major axis and eccentricity around a nominal value and a given amplitude (so, the semi-major axes are in the interval a +- Δa and the eccentricities are in the interval e +- Δe). The main goal is to study the distribution of those two orbital elements after the close approach. In particular, we will measure the amplitude and area (in the plane a-e) of the distribution of the orbital elements. Two solutions are considered for the maneuver, to take into account the possibility that the particles crosses the line Sun-Jupiter between the primaries (with rotation of the velocity vector in the clockwise sense) or not (with rotation of the velocity vector in the counter-clockwise sense). For the numerical simulations shown here, the planet Jupiter is used.