Rotational Brownian motion (astronomy) Rotational Brownian motion (astronomy) In astronomy, rotational Brownian motion is the random walk in orientation of a binary star's orbital plane, induced by gravitational perturbations from passing stars. Consider a binary that consists of two massive objects (stars, black holes etc.) and that is embedded in a stellar system containing a large number of stars. Let formula_1 and formula_2 be the masses of the two components of the binary whose total mass is formula_3. A field star that approaches the binary with impact parameter formula_4 and velocity formula_5 passes a distance formula_6 from the binary, where formula_7 the latter expression
Brownian meander Brownian meander In the mathematical theory of probability, Brownian meander formula_1 is a continuous non-homogeneous Markov process defined as follows: Let formula_2 be a standard one-dimensional Brownian motion, and formula_3, i.e. the last time before "t" = 1 when formula_4 visits formula_5. Then the Brownian meander is defined by the following: In words, let formula_7 be the last time before 1 that a standard Brownian motion visits formula_5. (formula_9 almost surely.) We snip off and discard the trajectory of Brownian motion before formula_7, and scale the remaining part so that it spans a time interval of length 1. The scaling