Dynamical stability in the vicinity of Saturnian small moons. The cases of Aegaeon, Methone, Anthe and Pallene

Abstract

In this work we analyze the orbital evolution and the dynamical stability in the vicinity of the small Saturnian moons Aegaeon, Methone, Anthe and Pallene. We numerically resolve the exact equations of motions to investigate the orbital motion of thousands of test particles within and near to the domain of the 7/6, 14/15, 10/11 mean motion resonances of Aegaeon, Methone and Anthe with Mimas, respectively. We show that, for massless small moons, the orbits of particles initially restricted to the resonant domains remain stable for at least $10^4$ yr. We also conduct numerical simulations considering Aegaeon, Methone, Anthe and Pallene as massive bodies. The results show that most particles undergo significant perturbations in their orbital motions, ultimately destabilizing in timescales of a few hundreds of years or even less through collisions with the four small moons. In addition, we also simulate the orbital evolution of test particles initially distributed in form of arc around Aegaeon, Methone and Anthe. We show that the initial arcs are dynamically eroded on timescales of hundreds of years, allowing us to constraint the timescales for which gravitational forces operate to remove particles from the observed arcs.

arXiv commentPublished in MNRAS

References in corpus (9)

• Aegaeon (Saturn LIII), a G-ring object
• Coupling between corotation and Lindblad resonances in the elliptic planar three-body problem
• Orbital evolution of Saturn's mid-sized moons and the tidal heating of Enceladus
• Effects of immersed moonlets in the ring arc particles of Saturn
• Long-term Evolution and Stability of Saturnian Small Satellites: Aegaeon, Methone, Anthe, and Pallene
• Production and fate of the G ring arc particles due to Aegaeon (Saturn LIII)
• Orbital evolution of Saturn's satellites due to the interaction between the moons and massive Saturn's rings
• Dynamics of multiple bodies in a corotation resonance: Conserved quantities and relevance to ring arcs
• Formation of the G-ring arc

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The current orbit of Methone (S/2004 S 1)
• The orbit of Aegaeon and the 7:6 Mimas-Aegaeon resonance
• Orbital Dynamics of Atlas (S XV): Its Current Orbit and the Recent Past
• Dust production through collisions between small bodies: an application to the G-ring arc
• Revisiting the dynamics of the Prometheus-Pandora system