Does the Neptunian system of satellites challenge a gravitational origin for the Pioneer anomaly?

Abstract

If the Pioneer Anomaly (PA) was a genuine dynamical effect of gravitational origin, it should also affect the orbital motions of the solar system's bodies moving in the space regions in which the PA manifested itself in its presently known form, i.e. as a constant and uniform acceleration approximately directed towards the Sun with a non-zero magnitude APio = (8.74 +/- 1.33) x 10^-10 m s^-2 after 20 au from the Sun. In this paper we preliminarily investigate its effects on the orbital motions of the Neptunian satellites Triton, Nereid and Proteus, located at about 30 au from the Sun, both analytically and numerically. Extensive observational records covering sev- eral orbital revolutions have recently been analyzed for them, notably improving the knowledge of their orbits. Both analytical and numerical calculations, limited to the direct, Neptune-satellite interaction, show that the peak-to-peak amplitudes of the PA-induced radial, transverse and out-of-plane perturbations over one century are up to 300 km, 600 km, 8 m for Triton, 17,500 km, 35,000 km, 800 km for Nereid, and 60 km, 120 km, 30 m for Proteus. The corresponding orbital uncertainties ob- tained from a recent analysis of all the data available for the satellites considered are, in general, smaller by one-two orders of magnitude, although obtained without modeling a Pioneer-like extra-force. Further investigations based on a re-processing of the satellites' real or simulated data with modified equations of motions including an additional Pioneer-type force as well are worth being implemented and may shed further light on this important issue.

LaTex2e, 9 pages, 3 tables, 3 figures. To appear in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). Latest data from the perihelion precessions of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto added. Confrontation with the Pioneer Anomaly-induced perihelion precessions included.

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