The moment of inertia of the uniform disc about its central perpendicular axis is
The parallel axis theorem gives . For angle from the downward resting position, the gravitational torque is , so . Linearizing at gives . Thus the uniform disc pivoted at its rim is a physical pendulum with period
Measure a signed angle from the upward radius in the direction of falling. With , gravitational torque gives
There is an idealization in the release condition: exactly upright and exactly at rest is an unstable equilibrium, so the exact ideal solution stays there. Uniqueness of this smooth equation with prevents spontaneous departure. The usual falling calculation means an infinitesimal disturbance, with its energy tending to that of the upright rest state. For that limiting separatrix motion, conservation of mechanical energy gives
On the branch with increasing angle, for ; the opposite branch has the opposite angular velocity. The nontrivial limiting motion approaches the upright position only as , because has a logarithmically divergent integral near zero.
Let point from toward , and in the direction of increasing angle, so and . The centre of mass acceleration on the limiting falling branch is
Gravity has components . Applying Newton's second law to the whole disc gives
The signed component parallel to the radius, positive from toward , is the required . This same radial formula is consistent at the exact stationary upright state, where , , and ; nonzero falling angles require the limiting-release interpretation just stated.
Put , and . To leading order the mean-motion resonance fixes . The specific angular momentum is
The asteroid's instantaneous angular speed is . Thus the high-eccentricity angular-speed crossover satisfies , giving
Here , so a parabolic Kepler orbit gives the local motion accurately. Its polar equation is . Write . Since ,
This is the outward crossing; the inward crossing has true anomaly modulo .
For the pericentre-to-crossover flight time use . The parabolic Kepler orbit has and , whence direct integration gives the Barker equation
At the crossover . Consequently the planet's angular displacement is
The error tends to zero as at fixed ; it includes the finite binding energy of the elliptic Kepler orbit as well as the subleading term in the Barker equation.
At the th pericentre passage the asteroid's unwrapped mean longitude is . The resonant argument therefore gives
Thus specifies the planet's direction relative to the asteroid's longitude of pericentre when the asteroid passes pericentre, with branches separated by . It is not the instantaneous true-longitude separation throughout the orbit. At high orbital eccentricity the asteroid quickly sweeps to a direction nearly opposite pericentre, while the planet scarcely moves. During the long outer excursion the asteroid's direction changes slowly and the planet advances substantially. This makes an astronomical conjunction during the outer excursion much more dangerous than an astronomical conjunction close to pericentre.
At the following apocentre, the planet has advanced . The asteroid's direction in the rotating reference frame is consequently
These apocentre directions are equally spaced. Phase protection of interior integer resonances places the planet in the largest gap between them, rather than at an apocentre direction. For , puts an apocentre toward the planet, whereas puts the apocentres at . For , puts an apocentre toward the planet, whereas puts the apocentres at . Hence the geometrically favored resonant-argument libration centres in this regime of high orbital eccentricity are
This is an encounter-avoidance argument for likely stability, not a calculation of a resonant Hamiltonian or a claim that every orbit near either centre is stable at arbitrary orbital eccentricity.
The following rotating-frame drawing uses , , and . It follows three successive Kepler orbits, which fill one planet orbital period and close the pattern. The blue segment is just the first outward half-orbit. The marked crossover is a maximum of its rotating-frame polar angle, since changes from positive to negative there. The planet stays at ; the three apocentres avoid that direction.
Figure 1.
Phase-protected high-eccentricity 3:1 orbit in the planet's rotating frame
.
To estimate angular-momentum kicks to nearly radial orbits, note that , so an order-one fractional change in requires of order . A characteristic distant encounter at radii of order has tangential acceleration of order and duration of order . Its torque per unit asteroid mass therefore produces
With the most favorable coherent signs, the crude encounter count is
Order-one factors depend on and encounter geometry. Uncorrelated signs instead give a random walk count of order when this is large. A librating phase-protected orbit can suppress the kicks even further.
There is an important limit to calling this a minimum. The question does not specify an encounter impact parameter. For a weak close encounter with impact parameter and relative speed , the impulse estimate gives and hence , capped below by one. In the 2:1 case the Kepler orbit can cross the planet's orbit, so one suitably close encounter can suffice: there is no impact-parameter-independent large lower bound. For , bounds the separation below by , and supplies a geometric factor at fixed . The boxed count is the usual orbital-scale, maximally coherent estimate; the assumptions are essential.
For no central accretion, and
This nonaccreting constant-torque disk has a finite inner stress and normally a nonzero inner surface density. An external inner torque supplies the angular momentum transported to an outer sink, although mass does not flow. If both this zero-mass-flux condition and a zero inner torque are imposed, ; there is no nontrivial positive-viscosity steady disk satisfying both.
The conventional complete-flyby impulse approximation uses a straight incoming path , , with . Integrate the satellite's transverse acceleration over the whole encounter. For ,
The hint's integral is one over a half encounter, and two over the full encounter. The leading longitudinal impulse vanishes by oddness. In weak elastic scattering, conservation of the relative speed gives the next-order change along the original velocity as . With the original outer flow along negative , this means
The same signed expression holds for inner particles and has the opposite sign there. This is the complete-flyby gravitational impulse. Its weak-deflection requirement is . Rotation and tidal dynamics retained throughout the encounter give a more detailed response; this impulse model does not claim to solve the full Hill scattering problem exactly.
The printed coefficient is four times smaller than this complete-flyby value. It is obtained if the single-sided transverse impulse is inserted into the same quadratic longitudinal estimate, leaving out the other half. Thus the scaling and sign agree, but that numerical coefficient is not derived by the usual full-encounter prescription. To keep the subsequent requested formulas unambiguous, write the satellite impulse normalization
The following parts are derived for general and specialize to the supplied value. The complete-flyby one-sided torque coefficient is also the normalization used in the primary coplanar impulse calculation summarized by Chametla and collaborators.