Tidal Evolution of Close Binary Asteroid Systems

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Roughly 75% of near-Earth, Mars-crossing, and small main-belt binary asteroids (those with primaries under 10 km in diameter) have inter-component separations of less than five primary radii where the traditional assumption of a well-separated system breaks down. We expand the tidal potential between the two components in terms of Legendre polynomials to arbitrary order, rather than truncating at leading order as is typically done, to allow for accurate reproduction of the tidal evolution at separations within five primary radii. Accounting for higher order terms in the tidal potential serves to speed up the tidal evolution of the system leading to underestimates if such corrections are ignored. Special attention is given to the effect of close orbits on the calculation of material properties of the components, in terms of the rigidity and tidal dissipation function, based on the tidal evolution of the system, though it is found that accurate determinations of the physical parameters of the system, e.g., densities, sizes, and current separation, are typically more important. In the scope of long-term tidal evolution, the correction for close orbits is small, but for an instantaneous rate of change in spin rate, semimajor axis, or mean motion, the effect can be on the order of tens of percent.

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