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For a test particle interior to a distant eccentric planet, write $\alpha =a/a_p\ll 1$. The leading Laplace coefficients are $b_{3/2}^1=3\alpha$ and $b_{3/2}^2=15{\alpha }^2/4$. Thus its forced eccentricity is $Z_f=5\alpha e_p/4$ and its secular frequency is $A=(3/4)n_p(m_p/M){\alpha }^{3/2}$. More distant inner particles have larger forced orbital eccentricities and faster secular precession, producing a growing gradient of complex eccentricity.

A higher orbital line density at apoapsis does not always give a higher surface density of a disk: the local ring width also changes. In a narrow aligned eccentric ring, neglecting disc twist and keeping first-order orbital eccentricity, ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{peri}}\propto 1+ade/da$ and ${\Sigma }_{\mathrm{apo}}\propto 1-ade/da$. Constant eccentricity therefore gives constant surface density to this order.

In the weak, non-crossing, leading-eccentricity planar model, exterior orders one to three have positive resonant disturbing function coefficients $B_q$. Interior eccentricity-type coefficients of these orders have sign $(-1{)}^q$. A local resonant Hamiltonian $H=-A{J}^2/2-B{e}^q\cos \varphi$, with $A>0$, gives $\ddot{\varphi }=AB{e}^q\sin \varphi$. Linear stability analysis therefore selects $\varphi =\pi$ for $B>0$ and $\varphi =0$ for $B<0$. Exterior symmetric centres are $\pi$; interior centres are $0,\pi ,0$ for orders one, two and three. These are conditional leading-harmonic predictions, not universal centres at arbitrary orbital eccentricity; asymmetric resonant-argument libration changes the picture.

For a small planet on a nearly circular Kepler orbit, a stellar chord at normalized transit impact parameter $b$ has length $2R_{\star }\sqrt{1-b^2}$. Dividing by transverse orbital speed $2\pi a/P$ gives the duration. A central transit has the longest duration within this approximation. Eliminating $a$ with Kepler's third law yields $P/D^3\ge {\pi }^{2}G{\rho }_{\star }/3$ for known mean stellar mass density. Finite planet radius, appreciable orbital eccentricity, and $R_{\star }/a$ corrections change the bound.