On de-Sitter geometry in crater statistics
arXiv:1209.0525 · doi:10.1093/mnras/sts401
Abstract
The cumulative size-frequency distributions of impact craters on planetary bodies in the solar system appear to approximate a universal inverse square power-law for small crater radii. In this article, we show how this distribution can be understood easily in terms of geometrical statistics, using a de-Sitter geometry of the configuration space of circles on the Euclidean plane and on the unit sphere. The effect of crater overlap is also considered.
6 pages, 2 figures, accepted by MNRAS. Version 2: title modified, appendix added, some small changes