Resonance Overlap and Planetary Stability

Motivated by the population of observed multi-planet systems with orbital period ratios 1 < P2=P1 . 2, TA researchers Kat Deck, Matt Payne & Matt Holman have studied the long-term stability of packed two planet systems.

They applied analytic resonance overlap criterion to predict the onset of large scale chaotic motion in close two planet systems. They compared this analytic theory with numerical simulations and found that the first order resonance overlap criterion provides an effective stability criterion for pairs of observed planets, providing a deep insight into the allowed stability of planetary systems.