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The physics of planetary ringsa Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Simeiz, Crimea, Ukraine b Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA c Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Pyatnitskaya 48, Moscow, 119017, Russian Federation d Russian Research Centre ‘Kurchatov Institute’, Institute of Physics of Stochastic Structures, pl. Kurchatova 1, Moscow, 123182, Russian Federation A review of the collisional, collective, and resonance phenomena in planetary rings is presented. The following questions are examined: the reasons for the existence of planetary rings and the properties of a typical particle, the collisional breaking of loose bodies, and the azimuthal asymmetry effect for the rings of Saturn. A transfer theory is being developed for differentially rotating disks of inelastic particles, and the collective instabilities of planetary rings and a protoplanetary disk are discussed. A model for the resonance origin for the rings of Uranus is described, which enabled one to predict unknown satellites of Uranus that were later discovered by ``Voyager-2''. The problem of the stability of the rings of Uranus is examined.
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