Astrophysics (Index)About

instability region

(unstable region, region of instability, dynamical instability region)
(region around an object where orbits cannot persist)

The term instability region and similar terms are used for a region (range of radii) around an astronomical body where an orbit around it would be unstable due to one or more additional orbiting bodies. The term is particularly used for a region surrounding multiple bodies in orbit, such as a binary star in a fairly close orbit: within a region close to the pair, a planet orbiting the pair would pass close enough to an individual star to significantly affect its orbit. This could be an effect that would immediately result in a significant change to any such orbit, or could be a secular instability: a small change to each orbit that would eventually lead to a drastic change.


Instability is a common phenomenon in physics and undoubtedly the phrase instability region (and similar phrases) are used for instances not related to the above. There is a strip-shaped region of the H-R diagram termed the instability strip because stars plotted within that region are generally unstable.


(mathematics,dynamics,orbits)
Further reading:
https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/04/12/circumbinary-castaways-short-period-binary-systems-can-eject-orbiting-worlds/
https://blog.planethunters.org/2012/11/06/growing-planets-around-binary-stars/
http://www.stefanom.org/circumbinary-planet-formation-here-be-high-speed-impacts/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019EP%26S...71...82Y/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023AJ....165..140L/abstract

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