N-body simulations of viscous instability of planetary rings

Details N-body simulations of viscous instability of planetary rings N-body simulations of viscous instability of planetary rings

Apr 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010icar..206..390s&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 206, Issue 2, p. 390-409.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

2

Scientific paper

We study viscous instability of planetary rings in terms of N-body simulations. We show that for rings composed of fairly elastic particles (e.g. as in Hatzes et al. [Hatzes, A., Bridges, F.G., Lin, D.N.C., 1988. Collisional properties of ice spheres at low impact velocities. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 231, 1091-1115]) the instability may lead to the spontaneous formation of dense ringlets in a background of lower density. In most parts of Saturn’s rings the particle collisions are probably much more dissipative, as suggested by the presence of self-gravity wakes, and classic viscous instability should be suppressed. However, our results demonstrate that the mechanism of viscous instability itself is valid. The dynamical effects of size-dependent elasticity in a system with a size distribution have never been studied before. We show that this may in principle lead to a size-selective viscous instability, small particles concentrating on ringlets against the more uniform background of large particles.

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