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arXiv · 1209.0525

On de-Sitter geometry in crater statistics

Gary W. Gibbons·Marcus C. Werner
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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.

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Gary W. Gibbons, Marcus C. Werner. 2012-11-15. On de-Sitter geometry in crater statistics. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras%2Fsts401

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