Geophysical and Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics

Abstract:

We consider the evolution of a system containing a population of massive planets formed rapidly through a fragmentation process occurring on a scale on the order of 100 au and a lower mass planet that assembles in a disc on a much longer time-scale. During the formation phase, the inner planet is kept on a circular orbit owing to tidal interaction with the disc, while the outer planets undergo dynamical relaxation. Interaction with the massive planets left in the system after the inner planet forms may increase the eccentricity of the inner orbit to high values, producing systems similar to those observed.

Abstract:

In this paper, we show that the behavior of weakly nonlinear waves in a 2-layer model of baroclinic instability on a P-plane with varying viscosity is determined by a single degenerate codimension three bifurcation. In the process, we show how previous studies, using the method of multiple scales to derive evolution equations for the slowly varying amplitude of the growing wave, arise as special limits of the general evolution description.