Order statistics and heavy-tail distributions for planetary perturbations on Oort cloud comets

Radu S. Stoica (1) , Shuyan Liu (1) , Youri Davydov (1) , Marc Fouchard (2, 3) , Alain Vienne (2, 3) , Giovanni Valsecchi (4)

1 LPP - Laboratoire Paul Painlevé - UMR 8524
2 IMCCE - Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides
3 LAL - Laboratoire d'Astronomie de Lille
4 IASF-Roma - Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica cosmica - Roma

This paper tackles important aspects of comets dynamics from a statistical point of view. Existing methodology uses numerical integration for computing planetary perturbations for simulating such dynamics. This operation is highly computational. It is reasonable to wonder whenever statistical simulation of the perturbations can be much more easy to handle. The first step for answering such a question is to provide a statistical study of these perturbations in order to catch their main features. The statistical tools used are order statistics and heavy tail distributions. The study carried out indicated a general pattern exhibited by the perturbations around the orbits of the important planet. These characteristics were validated through statistical testing and a theoretical study based on Opik theory.

Mots clés: methods statistical; celestial mechanics; Oort Cloud

Domaines: Statistiques [math.ST]; Théorie [stat.TH]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]; Planétologie et astrophysique de la terre [astro-ph.EP]

Radu S. Stoica, Shuyan Liu, Youri Davydov, Marc Fouchard, Alain Vienne, et al.. Order statistics and heavy-tail distributions for planetary perturbations on Oort cloud comets. Astronomy and Astrophysics - A&A, 2010, 513 (A14), 9 p. ⟨10.1051/0004-6361/200912871⟩. ⟨hal-00519715⟩