PTYS/LPL Faculty

Kuiper 515

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Renu Malhotra

Regents' Professor, Louise Foucar Marshall Science Research Professor

Astrobiology, Exoplanets; Planetary Formation and Evolution, Orbital Dynamics, Small Bodies, Theoretical Astrophysics

Professor Malhotra's research spans orbital dynamics in the solar system and in exo-solar planetary systems. Current topics of research are: theory of orbital resonances, long term stability and chaos in the asteroid belt and in the Kuiper belt, the orbital migration history of the giant planets, and the dynamics of exo-solar planetary systems.

Ph.D., 1988, Cornell University

Years with LPL: 2000 to present

Renu Malhotra is Louise Foucar Marshall Science Research Professor and Regents Professor of Planetary Sciences at The University of Arizona in Tucson, where she directed the Theoretical Astrophysics Program during 2011-2016. She was born in New Delhi and grew up in Hyderabad, India. She earned her M.S. in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi in 1983, and her Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University in 1988. She did post-doctoral research at Cornell and at Caltech, and worked as a staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. Her work in planetary dynamics has spanned a wide variety of topics, including extra-solar planets and debris disks around nearby stars, the formation and evolution of the Kuiper belt and the asteroid belt, the orbital resonances amongst the moons of the giant planets, and the meteoritic bombardment history of the planets. She has revolutionized our understanding of the history of the solar system by using the orbital resonance between Pluto and Neptune to infer large-scale orbital migration of the giant planets and to predict the existence of the "Plutinos" and other small planets in resonance with Neptune. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been the recipient of honors and awards from the American Astronomical Society, the International Astronomical Union, the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cornell University, The University of Arizona, and the IIT-Delhi.

Current Grants

  • Co-I, Dynamics of sticky resonances and detached Kuiper belt objects: NASA
  • PI, Kuiper Belt Dynamics with a Distant Unseen Planet: NSF
  • PI, Distribution of planet masses, planet-planet separations and dynamical lifetimes of planetary systems: NASA
  • Co-I, Earths in Other Solar Systems: Toward forming and discovering planets: NASA

Current Spacecraft Involvement

Former Spacecraft Involvement

  • Interstellar Probe Science Definition Team, 1999-2004
  • Brenae Bailey (APPMATH)
  • Theodore Broeren (APPMATH)
  • Saverio Cambioni (PTYS)
  • Michael Hammer (ASTR)
  • Hamish Hay (PTYS)
  • Nathan Hendler (PTYS)
  • Youngmin JeongAhn (PTYS)
  • Lei Lan (Tsinghua University)
  • Po-Yen Liu (NCU-Taiwan)
  • Ian Matheson (AME)
  • David Minton (PTYS)
  • Amaya Moro-Martin (ASTR)
  • Sarah Morrison (PTYS)
  • Jessica Pillow (APPMATH)
  • Nathan Reiland (AME)
  • Timothy Rodigas (ASTR)
  • Rachel Smullen (ASTR)
  • Adam Sutherland (ASTR)
  • Matthew Tiscareno (PTYS)
  • Kathryn Volk ( PTYS)
  • Xianyu Wang (Tsinghua University)
  • Nan Zhang  (Tsinghua University)

Former Postdocs

  • Kathryn Volk
  • Joseph Hahn
  • Stephen Kortenkamp

Current Staff Scientists

  • Kathryn Volk

 

Complete publications list available from: NASA ADS Author search: Renu Malhotra

Refereed publications (NASA ADS): Calendar Years 2017 through June 2020

Malhotra, R., Ingersoll, A. P. Adam P. Showman (1968-2020) 2020Icar..34513780M

Malhotra, R., Zhang, N. On the Divergence of First Order Resonance Widths at Low Eccentricities 2020MNRAS.tmp.1888M

Hendler, N., Pascucci, I., Pinilla, P., Tazzari, M., Carpenter, J., Malhotra, R., Testi, L. The Evolution of Dust Disk Sizes from a Homogeneous Analysis of 1-10 Myr old Stars 2020ApJ...895..126H

Markwardt, L., Gerdes, D. W., Malhotra, R., Becker, J. C., Hamilton, S. J., Adams, F. C. Search for L5 Earth Trojans with DECam 2020MNRAS.492.6105M

Malhotra, R. Resonant Kuiper belt objects: a review 2019GSL.....6...12M

Lan, L., Malhotra, R. Neptune's resonances in the scattered disk 2019CeMDA.131...39L

Volk, K., Malhotra, R. Not a Simple Relationship between Neptune’s Migration Speed and Kuiper Belt Inclination Excitation 2019AJ....158...64V

Su, K. Y. L., Jackson, A. P., Gáspár, A., Rieke, G. H., Dong, R., Olofsson, J., Kennedy, G. M., Leinhardt, Z. M., Malhotra, R., Hammer, M., Meng, H. Y. A., Rujopakarn, W., Rodriguez, J. E., Pepper, J., Reichart, D. E., James, D., Stassun, K. G. Extreme Debris Disk Variability: Exploring the Diverse Outcomes of Large Asteroid Impacts During the Era of Terrestrial Planet Formation 2019AJ....157..202S

Walsh, K. J., Jawin, E. R., Ballouz, R.-L., Barnouin, O. S., Bierhaus, E. B., Connolly, H. C., Molaro, J. L., McCoy, T. J., Delbo', M., Hartzell, C. M., Pajola, M., Schwartz, S. R., Trang, D., Asphaug, E., Becker, K. J., Beddingfield, C. B., Bennett, C. A., Bottke, W. F., Burke, K. N., Clark, B. C., Daly, M. G., Dellagiustina, D. N., Dworkin, J. P., Elder, C. M., Golish, D. R., Hildebrand, A. R., Malhotra, R., Marshall, J., Michel, P., Nolan, M. C., Perry, M. E., Rizk, B., Ryan, A., Sandford, S. A., Scheeres, D. J., Susorney, H. C. M., Thuillet, F., Lauretta, D. S., Osiris-Rex Team Publisher Correction: Craters, boulders and regolith of (101955) Bennu indicative of an old and dynamic surface 2019NatGe..12..399W

Walsh, K. J., Jawin, E. R., Ballouz, R.-L., Barnouin, O. S., Bierhaus, E. B., Connolly, H. C., Molaro, J. L., McCoy, T. J., Delbo', M., Hartzell, C. M., Pajola, M., Schwartz, S. R., Trang, D., Asphaug, E., Becker, K. J., Beddingfield, C. B., Bennett, C. A., Bottke, W. F., Burke, K. N., Clark, B. C., Daly, M. G., Dellagiustina, D. N., Dworkin, J. P., Elder, C. M., Golish, D. R., Hildebrand, A. R., Malhotra, R., Marshall, J., Michel, P., Nolan, M. C., Perry, M. E., Rizk, B., Ryan, A., Sandford, S. A., Scheeres, D. J., Susorney, H. C. M., Thuillet, F., Lauretta, D. S., Osiris-Rex Team Craters, boulders and regolith of (101955) Bennu indicative of an old and dynamic surface 2019NatGe..12..242W

Rizk, B., Drouet d'Aubigny, C., Hergenrother, C. W., Bos, B. J., Golish, D. R., Malhotra, R., Lauretta, D. S., Butt, J., Patel, J., Fitzgibbon, M., May, C., Bierhaus, E. B., Freund, S., Fisher, M., Cambioni, S., Bennett, C. A., Balram-Knutson, S. S., Harshman, K., DellaGiustina, D. N., Antreasian, P., Leonard, J., Mink, R., Calloway, A., Bartels, A. E., Enos, H., Boynton, W. V., Nolan, M. C., Moreau, M. OSIRIS-REx low-velocity particles during outbound cruise 2019AdSpR..63..672R

Malhotra, R., Lan, L., Volk, K., Wang, X. Neptune's 5:2 Resonance in the Kuiper Belt 2018AJ....156...55M

Trilling, D. E., Bellm, E. C., Malhotra, R. On the Detectability of Planet X with LSST 2018AJ....155..243T

Strom, R. G., Marchi, S., Malhotra, R. Ceres and the terrestrial planets impact cratering record 2018Icar..302..104S

Cambioni, S., Malhotra, R. The Mid-plane of the Main Asteroid Belt 2018AJ....155..143C

Su, K. Y. L., MacGregor, M. A., Booth, M., Wilner, D. J., Flaherty, K., Hughes, A. M., Phillips, N. M., Malhotra, R., Hales, A. S., Morrison, S., Ertel, S., Matthews, B. C., Dent, W. R. F., Casassus, S. ALMA 1.3 mm Map of the HD 95086 System 2017AJ....154..225S

Volk, K., Malhotra, R. Erratum: "The Curiously Warped Mean Plane of the Kuiper Belt" (2017, AJ, 154, 62) 2017AJ....154..212V

Volk, K., Malhotra, R. The Curiously Warped Mean Plane of the Kuiper Belt 2017AJ....154...62V

Wang, X., Malhotra, R. Mean Motion Resonances at High Eccentricities: The 2:1 and the 3:2 Interior Resonances 2017AJ....154...20W

JeongAhn, Y., Malhotra, R. Simplified Derivation of the Collision Probability of Two Objects in Independent Keplerian Orbits 2017AJ....153..235J

Malhotra, R., Wang, X. Eccentricity distribution in the main asteroid belt 2017MNRAS.465.4381M

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Semester Course Day/Time Location Resources
Spring 2021 PTYS 595B-002 TTH 9:30-10:45a.m. Kuiper 301
Spring 2020 PTYS 553-001 TTH 9:30-10:45a.m. Kuiper 312 Syllabus
Spring 2019 PTYS/ASTR 170B2-001 TTH 9:30-10:45a.m. Kuiper 308 Syllabus
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Spring 2018 PTYS 553-001 TTH 9:30 - 10:45a.m. Kuiper 312 Syllabus
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Fall 2018 PTYS 516-001 TTH 9:30-10:45a.m. Kuiper 312 Syllabus
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Fall 2018 PTYS 416-001 TTH 9:30-10:45a.m. Kuiper 312 Syllabus
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Last updated on July 9, 2020