对火星轨道变化问题的最后解释 (第2/14页)

n(Gladman1993):actuallythisisnotadefinitionofstability，butofinstability.Wedefineasystemasbecomingunstablewhenacloseencounteroccurssomewhereinthesystem，startingfromacertaininitialconfiguration(Chambers，Wetherill&Boss1996;Ito&Tanikawa1999).AsystemisdefinedasexperiencingacloseencounterwhentwobodiesapproachoneanotherwithinanareaofthelargerHillradius.Otherwisethesystemisdefinedasbeingstable.HenceforwardwestatethatourplanetarysystemisdynamicallystableifnocloseencounterhappensduringtheageofourSolarsystem，about±5Gyr.Incidentally，thisdefinitionmaybereplacedbyoneinwhichanoccurrenceofanyorbitalcrossingbetweeneitherofapairofplanetstakesplace.Thisisbecauseweknowfromexperiencethatanorbitalcrossingisverylikelytoleadtoacloseencounterinplanetaryandprotoplanetarysystems(Yoshinaga，Kokubo&Makino1999).OfcoursethisstatementcannotbesimplyappliedtosystemswithstableorbitalresonancessuchastheNeptune–Plutosystem.

    1.2Previousstudiesandaimsofthisresearch

    Inadditiontothevaguenessoftheconceptofstability，theplanetsinourSolarsystemshowacharactertypicalofdynamicalchaos(Sussman&Wisdom1988，1992).Thecauseofthischaoticbehaviourisnowpartlyunderstoodasbeingaresultofresonanceoverlapping(Murray&Holman1999;Lecar，Franklin&Holman2001).However，itwouldrequireintegratingoveranensembleofplanetarysystemsincludingallnineplanetsforaperiodcoveringseveral10Gyrtothoroughlyunderstandthelong-termevolutionofplanetaryorbits，sincechaoticdynamicalsystemsarecharacterizedbytheirstrongdependenceoninitialconditions.

    Fromthatpointofview，manyofthepreviouslong-termnumericalintegrationsincludedonlytheouterfiveplanets(Sussman&Wisdom1988;Kinoshita&Nakai1996).Thisisbecausetheorbitalperiodsoftheouterplanetsaresomuchlongerthanthoseoftheinnerfourplanetsthatitismucheasiertofollowthesystemforagivenintegrationperiod.Atpresent，thelongestnumericalintegrationspublishedinjournalsarethoseofDuncan&Lissauer(1998).Althoughtheirmaintarge