The Oort Cloud (OC) is a roughly spherical cloud of comets surrounding the solar system, stretching from well beyond the orbit of Neptune, half way to the nearest star. This body of comets is interesting because it contains a record of the gravitational perturbations suffered by the solar system over its lifetime. Here, we investigate the effects of a particular class of perturbing objects - enormous complexes of molecular gas called giant molecular clouds (GMCs). Recent evidence has shown that the classical picture of Oort Cloud formation is inadequate to describe certain properties of the OC. To re-investigate the dynamical evolution of the Oort Cloud, we simulate the Sun's emergence from its natal molecular cloud, and its subsequent encounters with GMCs. While the role of giant molecular clouds in OC formation has been explored before, they have been implemented in a general way, not explicitly taking into account the 3D structure of the cloud. In this research, we draw on an extensive body of evidence which suggests that GMCs are not uniform, diffuse objects, but are instead organized into high density clumps, connected by a very diffuse inter-clump medium. Recent research has shown that GMCs are likely to be fractal in nature, and so we have modeled them as fractal distributions with dimension 1.6. We then perform N-body simulations of the passage of the Sun and its Oort Cloud through such a molecular cloud. We find that the fractal structure of the GMC is, in fact, an important parameter in the magnitude of the cometary energy change. The significant energy changes occur as a result of interactions with the GMC substructure, not simply as a result of its overall density distribution. We find that interactions with GMCs can be quite destructive to the OC, but can also serve to move comets from tightly bound orbits to less tightly bound orbits, thus partially replacing those lost to stripping. Simulations of the Sun's relatively slow exit from its birth GMC paint a picture of a potentially very destructive era, in which a large portion of the OC's evolution may have occured. / Thesis (Master, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-21 13:05:17.527

We report the discovery of the minor planet 2013 SY99 on an exceptionally distant, highly eccentric orbit. With a perihelion of 50.0. au, 2013 SY99' s orbit has a semimajor axis of 730 +/- 40. au, the largest known for a high-perihelion trans-Neptunian object (TNO), and well beyond those of (90377) Sedna and 2012 VP113. Yet, with an aphelion of 1420 +/- 90. au, 2013 SY99' s orbit is interior to the region influenced by Galactic tides. Such TNOs are not thought to be produced in the current known planetary architecture of the solar system, and they have informed the recent debate on the existence of a distant giant planet. Photometry from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, Gemini North, and Subaru indicate 2013 SY99 is similar to 250. km in diameter and moderately red in color, similar to other dynamically excited TNOs. Our dynamical simulations show that Neptune's weak influence during 2013 SY99' s perihelia encounters drives diffusion in its semimajor axis of hundreds of astronomical units over 4. Gyr. The overall symmetry of random walks in the semimajor axis allows diffusion to populate 2013 SY99' s orbital parameter space from the 1000 to 2000. au inner fringe of the Oort cloud. Diffusion affects other known TNOs on orbits with perihelia of 45 to 49. au and semimajor axes beyond 250. au. This provides a formation mechanism that implies an extended population, gently cycling into and returning from the inner fringe of the Oort cloud.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis deals with a function eld analog of the André-Oort conjecture. The (classical) André-Oort conjecture concerns the distribution of special points on Shimura varieties. In our case we consider the André-Oort conjecture for special points in the product of Drinfeld modular varieties. We in particular manage to prove the André- Oort conjecture for subvarieties in a product of two Drinfeld modular surfaces under a characteristic assumption. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis handel van 'n funksieliggaam analoog van die André-Oort Vermoeding. Die (Klassieke) André-Oort Vermoeding het betrekking tot die verspreiding van spesiale punte op Shimura varietiete. Ons geval beskou ons die André-Oort Vermoeding vir spesiale punte op die produk Drinfeldse modulvarietiete. In die besonders, bewys ons die André-Oort Vermoeding vir ondervarieteite van 'n produk van twee Drinfeldse modulvarietiete, onderhewig aan 'n karakteristiek-aanname.

Nous démontrons une version pour la caractéristique p d'un cas spécial de la conjecture d'André-Oort. Plus précisement, soit Z le produit de n courbes modulaires de Drinfeld, et soit X une sous-variété algébrique irréductible de Z. Alors nous démontrons que X contient un ensemble Zariski-dense de points CM (c.a.d. points correspondant aux n-uples de A-modules de Drinfeld de rang 2 avec mulitplications complexes, où A=F_q[T], et q est une puissance d'un nombre prémier impair) si et seulement si X est une sous-variété dite modulaire. Notre approche répose sur une approche (en caractéristique 0) due à Edixhoven.

La conjecture de Zilber-Pink est une conjecture diophantienne concernant les intersections atypiques dans les variétés de Shimura mixtes. C’est une généralisation commune de la conjecture d’André-Oort et de la conjecture de Mordell-Lang. Le but de cette thèse est d’étudier Zilber-Pink. Plus concrètement, nous étudions la conjecture d’André-Oort, selon laquelle une sous-variété d’une variété de Shimura mixte est spéciale si son intersection avec l’ensemble des points spéciaux est dense, et la conjecture d’André-Pink-Zannier, selon laquelle une sous-variété d’une variété de Shimura mixte est faiblement spéciale si son intersection avec une orbite de Hecke généralisée est dense. Cette dernière conjecture généralise Mordell-Lang comme expliqué par Pink.Dans la méthode de Pila-Zannier, un point clef pour étudier la conjecture de Zilber-Pink est de démontrer le théorème d’Ax-Lindemann qui est une généralisation du théorème classique de Lindemann-Weierstrass dans un cadre fonctionnel. Un des résultats principaux de cette thèse est la démonstration du théorème d’Ax-Lindemann dans sa forme la plus générale, c’est- à-dire le théorème d’Ax-Lindemann mixte. Ceci généralise les résultats de Pila, Pila-Tsimerman, Ullmo-Yafaev et Klingler-Ullmo-Yafaev concernant Ax-Lindemann pour les variétés de Shimura pures.Un autre résultat de cette thèse est la démonstration de la conjecture d’André-Oort pour une grande collection de variétés de Shimura mixtes : in- conditionnellement pour une variété de Shimura mixte arbitraire dont la par- tie pure est une sous-variété de AN6 (par exemple les produits des familles universelles des variétés abéliennes de dimension 6 et le fibré de Poincaré sur A6) et sous GRH pour toutes les variétés de Shimura mixtes de type abélien. Ceci généralise des théorèmes connus de Klinger-Ullmo-Yafaev, Pila, Pila-Tsimerman et Ullmo pour les variétés de Shimura pures.Quant à la conjecture d’André-Pink-Zannier, nous démontrons plusieurs cas valables lorsque la variété de Shimura mixte ambiante est la famille universelle des variétés abéliennes. Tout d’abord nous démontrons l’intersection d’André-Oort et André-Pink-Zannier, c’est-à-dire que l’on étudie l’orbite de Hecke généralisée d’un point spécial. Ceci généralise des résultats d’Edixhoven-Yafaev et Klingler-Ullmo-Yafaev pour Ag. Nous prouvons ensuite la conjecture dans le cas suivant : une sous-variété d’un schéma abélien au dessus d’une courbe est faiblement spéciale si son intersection avec l’orbite de Hecke généralisée d’un point de torsion d’une fibre non CM est Zariski dense. Finalement pour une orbite de Hecke généralisée d’un point algébrique arbitraire, nous démontrons la conjecture pour toutes les courbes. Ces deux derniers cas généralisent des résultats de Habegger-Pila et Orr pour Ag.Dans toutes les démonstrations, la théorie o-minimale, en particulier le théorème de comptage de Pila-Wilkie, joue un rôle important. / The Zilber-Pink conjecture is a diophantine conjecture concerning unlikely intersections in mixed Shimura varieties. It is a common generalization of the André-Oort conjecture and the Mordell-Lang conjecture. This dissertation is aimed to study the Zilber-Pink conjecture. More concretely, we will study the André-Oort conjecture, which predicts that a subvariety of a mixed Shimura variety having dense intersection with the set of special points is special, and the André-Pink-Zannier conjecture which predicts that a subvariety of a mixed Shimura variety having dense intersection with a generalized Hecke orbit is weakly special. The latter conjecture generalizes the Mordell-Lang conjecture as explained by Pink.In the Pila-Zannier method, a key point to study the Zilber-Pink conjec- ture is to prove the Ax-Lindemann theorem, which is a generalization of the functional analogue of the classical Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem. One of the main results of this dissertation is to prove the Ax-Lindemann theorem in its most general form, i.e. the mixed Ax-Lindemann theorem. This generalizes results of Pila, Pila-Tsimerman, Ullmo-Yafaev and Klingler-Ullmo-Yafaev concerning the Ax-Lindemann theorem for pure Shimura varieties.Another main result of this dissertation is to prove the André-Oort conjecture for a large class of mixed Shimura varieties: unconditionally for any mixed Shimura variety whose pure part is a subvariety of AN6 (e.g. products of universal families of abelian varieties of dimension 6 and the Poincaré bundle over A6) and under GRH for all mixed Shimura varieties of abelian type. This generalizes existing theorems of Klinger-Ullmo-Yafaev, Pila, Pila-Tsimerman and Ullmo concerning pure Shimura varieties.As for the André-Pink-Zannier conjecture, we prove several cases when the ambient mixed Shimura variety is the universal family of abelian varieties. First we prove the overlap of André-Oort and André-Pink-Zannier, i.e. we study the generalized Hecke orbit of a special point. This generalizes results of Edixhoven-Yafaev and Klingler-Ullmo-Yafaev for Ag. Secondly we prove the conjecture in the following case: a subvariety of an abelian scheme over a curve is weakly special if its intersection with the generalized Hecke orbit of a torsion point of a non CM fiber is Zariski dense. Finally for the generalized Hecke orbit of an arbitrary algebraic point, we prove the conjecture for curves. These generalize existing results of Habegger-Pila and Orr for Ag.In all these proofs, the o-minimal theory, in particular the Pila-Wilkie counting theorems, plays an important role.

After presenting some preliminary information, this paper presents two proofs regarding group schemes. The first relates the category of affine group schemes to the category of commutative Hopf algebras. The second shows that a commutative group scheme of finite order is in fact killed by its order. / text

There now exists an abundant collection of conjectures and results, of various complexities, regarding the diophantine properties of Shimura varieties. Two central such statements are the Andre-Oort and Zilber-Pink Conjectures, the first of which is known in many cases, while the second is known in very few cases indeed. The motivating result for much of this document is the modular case of the Andre-Oort Conjecture, which is a theorem of Pila. It is most commonly viewed as a statement about the simplest kind of Shimura varieties, namely modular curves. Here, we tend instead to view it as a statement about the properties of the classical modular j-function. It states, given a complex algebraic variety V, that V contains only finitely many maximal special subvarieties, where a special variety is one which arises from the arithmetic behaviour of the j-function in a certain natural way. The central question of this thesis is the following: what happens if in such statements we replace the j-function with some other kind of modular function; one which is less well-behaved in one way or another? Such modular functions are naturally called nonclassical modular functions. This question, as we shall see, can be studied using techniques of o-minimality and point-counting, but some interesting new features arise and must be dealt with. After laying out some of the classical theory, we go on to describe two particular types of nonclassical modular function: almost holomorphic modular functions and quasimodular functions (which arise naturally from the derivatives of the j-function). We go on to prove some results about the diophantine properties of these functions, including several natural Andre-Oort-type theorems, then conclude by discussing some bigger-picture questions (such as the potential for nonclassical variants of, say, Zilber-Pink) and some directions for future research in this area.