On the secular evolution of the semi-major axis in canonical formalism

Abstract

There are several astrophysical configurations where one is interested only in the long-term dynamical evolution. Although the first-order version of this approximation is usually sufficient in applications, second-order corrections may be relevant, too. Here we use the Hamiltonian formalism to show how such higher-order terms lead to the long-term evolution of the semi-major axis.

7 pages, 0 figures