Self-Gravity Wakes in Saturnian Rings: Effects of Varying Location, Particle Density, and Introducing a Particle Size Distribution

Details Self-Gravity Wakes in Saturnian Rings: Effects of Varying Location, Particle Density, and Introducing a Particle Size Distribution Self-Gravity Wakes in Saturnian Rings: Effects of Varying Location, Particle Density, and Introducing a Particle Size Distribution

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.2105r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #21.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.424

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We have completed 200 local N-body simulations of the A (130 Mm), B (100 Mm), and C (85 Mm) rings in order to identify systematic differences in the degree of particle clumping into self-gravity wakes as a function of orbital distance from Saturn, classical optical depth (which is proportional to surface density of particles), internal particle density, and dependence on particles of a single size vs. a size distribution. The purpose of exploring such a large parameter space is to constrain each parameter by comparing the final simulations' transparency with the optical depths measured by the Cassini UVIS instrument. By better constraining these parameters, we can better constrain the overall mass of Saturn's rings. These simulations reveal that the normal optical depth of the final configuration is not a linear function of the surface density of particles as is usually assumed. The surface density of particles can be substantially larger than one would infer from a uniform distribution of particles. Adding more particles to the simulation simply piles more particles onto the self-gravity wakes while leaving relatively clear gaps between the wakes for simulations with high-internal-density particles, but it yields much more linear behavior for low-internal densities. Calculated optical depths of our N-body simulations exhibit strong variations with the viewing geometry similar to the variations observed in stellar occulations. We also find that the viscosity (and hence the spreading rate) in the A ring is substantially larger than that in the B ring (at identical surface densities) and the C ring. Additionally, we find that the classical optical depths at which the viscosity begins to rapidly increase is dependent upon distance from Saturn and the internal particle density. Finally, we serendipitously formed a small moonlet in one of our high-internal-particle-density simulations of the A ring.

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