You can find a complete list of my publications here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paper Summaries:

 

The Effects of Disk Induced Apsidal Precession on Planets Captured into Mean Motion Resonance:

Mean motion resonances are common both in the solar system and in extrasolar systems. They occur when the ratio of two objects' orbital periods \( P_2/P_1 \) is a simple integer ratio. One way of capturing planets into these resonances is through disk-driven migration. In this scenario, the disk damps the eccentricity with a timescale \( \tau_e = e / \dot{e} \) and the semi-major axis of the planet with timescale \( \tau_a = a / \dot{a} \). The outcome of this capture is to asymptotically approach an equilibrium eccentricity given roughly as \( e_{eq} \propto \sqrt{\tau_e / \tau_a} \). We consider the case in which the precession exerted by the disk is included. We find the equilibrium eccentricities of the planets are influenced by the differential precession rate \( \delta \dot{\omega} = \dot{\omega_2} - \dot{\omega_1} \) and increase with increasing differential precession. Eventually, when the differential precession rate becomes too large, the planets fail to capture into resonance and instead scatter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using Neural Networks to Model Main Belt Asteroid Albedos as a Function of Their Proper Orbital Elements :

Asteroid diameters are traditionally difficult to estimate. Besides spacecraft visits, occultations, or radar imaging, it's challenging to accurately estimate the diameters of most asteroids. However, if asteroids have measured albedos, their diameters can be computed simply from their flux. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of asteroids have measured albedos, but those that are measured tend to cluster in the space of proper orbital elements (the major proper elements can be thought of as just the average of the instantaneous elements over long timescales). We take advantage of this clustering to predict albedos across the Main asteroid belt. We use albedo measurements from the NEOWISE spacecraft to train our model. Since albedos are only defined between 0 and 1, the likelihood distribution associated with a NEOWISE measurement is non-Gaussian, especially strongly so if the error bars are large. To handle this, we model the albedo across the belt using a democratic consensus of neural networks. We find we can decrease errors by about 30% (compared to the traditional albedo=0.1 assumption) and produce a catalog of predicted albedos 5 times the size of the NEOWISE dataset. Below, we show an interactive flythrough of the belt, colored by our predicted albedos.

 

Can the Gravitational Effect of Planet X be Detected in Current-era Tracking of the Known Major and Minor Planets? :

In this feasibility study, we examine the gravitational influence of a hypothetical - yet undetected - Planet X body in the outer solar system and investigate whether its influence could be detected in the observed motion of known solar system bodies. We find that a planet of 5 Earth masses at 400 AU should be detectable over the entire sky, but a planet twice as far would be difficult to detect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Challenge of Measuring Asteroid Masses with Gaia DR2 astrometry:

In this study, we examine the potential for determining asteroid masses using data from the second Gaia Data Release. We find that while the astrometry is incredibly precise, the short timespan of the dataset means that astrometric mass determinations are difficult to make with Gaia data alone. Additionally, we find that integrator error due to a simplified (e.g., non-relativistic) force model of solar system dynamics grows quickly enough to be comparable to Gaia's precision over timescales longer than a few years. Consequently, accurate mass determination using Gaia data will have to be done with highly precise integrations of solar system dynamics.