Orbital Evolution of Small Binary Asteroids

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Cuk (2007) proposed a purelly radiation-driven life cycle for small binary asteroids. In this view, single asteroids get spun-up by YORP and shed mass, which then accretes into a close-in secondary. The lifetime of such binaries is determined by orbit-changing Binary YORP (BYORP) which becomes dominant over mass exchange once the secondary reach a certain size. BYORP can evolve the secondary both inward and outward, depending on its shape.
Here we present our direct simulations of the secondary's orbital evolution due to BYORP. We find that for most primary obliquities BYORP evolution gets interrupted by the so-called evection resonance with the Sun, which causes the secondary to become eccentric. We also note that elongated objects like many known secondaries cannot maintain regular synchronous rotation on eccentric orbits (as is famously the case with Hyperion). Resulting chaos makes outward evolution impossible, but could lead to reversal in BYORP evolution and ultimate merger between the two components. We will discuss implications of these findings for the observed small binary populations.

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