Dynamical Evolution of the Hungaria Asteroids

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Scientific paper

Hungarias are a stable asteroid group of minor planets orbiting between Mars and the main asteroid belt, with high inclinations (16-30 deg), low eccentricities (e<0.12) and a narrow range of semimajor axes (1.8-2 AU). While large Hungarias are compositionally diverse, the overall population is dominated by E-types belonging to the collisional family centered on (434) Hungaria (Warner et al, 2009). As a stable population, Hungarias are thought to be primordial. However, past stability studies have ignored the Yarkovsky effect, which could significantly affect the long-term stability of small bodies in a limited orbital niche. In order to explore possible significance of the past Yarkovsky drift, we ran a set of five 100-Myr simulations for each of the 30 large Hungarias, with different runs starting with present eccentricity and inclination, but covering a range of plausible past semimajor axes. Eight of the bodies in our sample turned out to be long-term Mars-crossers in nominal simulations. For others, simulations shifted in semimajor axis were largely stable unless they happened to land on one of the Martian resonances. The majority of Hungarias should have crossed a Martian resonance in the past, requiring a much larger primordial population to sustain the losses. We propose an alternative scenario of continuous replenishment. We find that certain Mars-crossers can be trapped in Martian resonances for tens of millions of years, making it possible for the Yarkovsky effect to migrate them out of the resonance lock. If this exit happens while the asteroid's eccentricity (which is constantly evolving due to the resonance) is sufficiently low, a stable Hungaria is created. We speculate that S-types are more likely to have been "adopted" into the Hungaria group this way, while at least some of the E-types are likely to be primordial.

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