The hierarchical triple body approximation has useful applications to a
variety of systems from planetary and stellar scales to supermassive black
holes. In this approximation, the energy of each orbit is separately conserved
and therefore the two semi-major axes are constants. On timescales much larger
than the orbital periods, the orbits exchange angular momentum which leads to
eccentricity and orientation (i.e., inclination) oscillations. The orbits'
eccentricity can reach extreme values leading to a nearly radial motion, which
can further evolve into short orbit periods and merging binaries. Furthermore,
the orbits' mutual inclination may change dramatically from pure prograde to
pure retrograde leading to misalignment and a wide range of inclinations. This
dynamical behavior is coined as the "eccentric Kozai-Lidov" mechanism. The
behavior of such a system is exciting, rich and chaotic in nature. Furthermore,
these dynamics are accessible from a large part of the triple body parameter
space and can be applied to diverse range of astrophysical settings and used to
gain insights to many puzzles.Comment: 60 pages 25 figures, to appear in Annual Review of Astronomy and
Astrophysics, comments welcom