Kozai mechanism

In celestial mechanics, the Kozai mechanism is a dynamical phenomenon affecting the orbit of a binary system perturbed by a distant third body under certain conditions. It is also known as the von Zeipel-Kozai-Lidov, Lidov–Kozai mechanism, Kozai–Lidov mechanism, or some combination of Kozai, Lidov–Kozai, Kozai–Lidov or von Zeipel-Kozai-Lidov effect, oscillations, cycles, or resonance. This effect causes the orbit's argument of pericenter to oscillate about a constant value, which in turn leads to a periodic exchange between its eccentricity and inclination. The process occurs on timescales much longer than the orbital periods. It can drive an initially near-circular orbit to arbitrarily high eccentricity, and flip an initially moderately inclined orbit between a prograde and a retrograde motion. The effect has been found to be an important factor shaping the orbits of irregular satellites of the planets, trans-Neptunian objects, extrasolar planets, and multiple star systems. It hypothetically promotes black hole mergers. It was first described in 1961 by Mikhail Lidov while analyzing the orbits of artificial and natural satellites of planets. In 1962, Yoshihide Kozai published this same result in application to the orbits of asteroids perturbed by Jupiter. The citations of the initial papers by Kozai and Lidov have risen sharply in the 21st century. , the mechanism is among the most studied astrophysical phenomena. Hamiltonian mechanics In Hamiltonian mechanics, a physical system is specified by a function, called Hamiltonian and denoted , of canonical coordinates in phase space. The canonical coordinates consist of the generalized coordinates in configuration space and their conjugate momenta , for , for the N bodies in the system ( for the von Zeipel-Kozai–Lidov effect). The number of pairs required to describe a given system is the number of its degrees of freedom. The coordinate pairs are usually chosen in such a way as to simplify the calculations involved in solving a particular problem.