Dynamics of a rotating ellipsoid with a stochastic flattening

Abstract

Experimental data suggest that the Earth short time dynamics is related to stochastic fluctuation of its shape. As a first approach to this problem, we derive a toy-model for the motion of a rotating ellipsoid in the framework of stochastic differential equations. Precisely, we assume that the fluctuations of the geometric flattening can be modeled by an admissible class of diffusion processes respecting some invariance properties. This model allows us to determine an explicit drift component in the dynamical flattening and the second zonal harmonic whose origin comes from the stochastic term and is responsible for short term effects. Using appropriate numerical scheme, we perform numerical simulations showing the role of the stochastic perturbation on the short term dynamics. Our toy-model exhibits behaviors which look like the experimental one. This suggests to extend our strategy with a more elaborated model for the deterministic part.