Three Body Dynamics and Its Applications to Exoplanets / SpringerBriefs in Astronomy (PDF)

Professor Zdzislaw E. Musielak is currently Professor of Physics at the University of Texas in Arlington. He has taught classes in all areas of physics to undergraduate and graduate physics students since 1982. Dr. Musielak's research has focused on physical processes in solar and stellar atmospheres, orbital stability of extra-solar planets, searches for exomoons, theory of chaos and nonlinear dynamical systems, and developing new methods in mathematical physics. He has published more than 200 papers in national and international physics and mathematical journals, and is the recipient of many research awards, including Humboldt Prize.

Dr. Billy L. Quarles is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. He has been an active player in the field of exoplanets over the last 5 years. As a graduate student, he specifically developed a stability criterion for the three-body problem using the Lyapunov exponent. As a NASA postdoctoral fellow, he has investigated the stability of many body systems to infer possible conditions on their origins. Along with collaborators, Dr. Quarles has aided in the discovery of the first Earth-sized extrasolar planet orbiting within the habitable zone of its host star and the tenth extrasolar planet to orbit two stars. As an early scientist, he has collaborated internationally within the Kepler mission and helped develop the most recent catalogs of planetary candidates.