Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 316 2 iv Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let , and . A tightly bound circumplanetary orbit lies well inside the Hill sphere, so and its orbital period is short compared with the planet's year. Treat the stellar flux and stellar direction as constant during one dust orbit. With stellar-frame velocity , the velocity-dependent acceleration isThe terms independent of , including the leading static radiation pressure, do no net work on an unperturbed closed circular orbit. HenceFor a coplanar circular orbit, and the component along the stellar direction has mean square . Thus yields the Poynting–Robertson decay of a circumplanetary orbitThe coefficient three assumes coplanarity, which the PDF does not state. For orbital normal , the general circular covariance is , givingAn orbital plane normal to the stellar radial direction has coefficient two during that orbit, a counterexample to an orientation-independent coefficient three. Averaging also over the planet's circular stellar orbit, with fixed dust-plane orbital inclination to it, gives coefficient . The conservative forces must be weak enough for the assumed approximately circular, planet-bound orbit to persist; the small planet-to-star mass ratio alone does not ensure this for arbitrary grain .