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arXiv 1303.0280astro-ph.EPastro-ph.SR
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冥王星低质量卫星的形成

The Formation of Pluto's Low Mass Satellites

Scott J. Kenyon, Benjamin C. Bromley

摘要:

受新视野号任务的启发,我们考虑冥王星的小卫星-目前的冥河,尼克斯,冥王星和九头蛇-如何在形成冥王星-冥卫一双星的巨大撞击的碎片中生长。撞击后,冥王星和冥卫一吸积了一些碎片,并将其余的从双星轨道上弹射出去。在抛射过程中,碎片粒子之间的高速碰撞产生碰撞级联,导致一些碎片从系统中抛射出来,并使剩余的碎片粒子能够找到围绕双星的稳定轨道。我们的凝聚和迁移的数值模拟表明,碰撞演化的一个环或一个磁盘的碎片导致一些小卫星绕冥王星-冥卫一。这些模拟是第一次证明迁移引起的合并在一个粒子盘。最终的卫星质量与初始盘质量相关。更大的圆盘倾向于产生更少的卫星。就卫星目前的性质而言,我们的研究结果非常支持初始碎片质量为3-10 x 10^{19} g,目前卫星的碎片质量约为0.4-1。我们还预测了一个由半径小于1-3 km的较小卫星和半径约为1-100 cm、光学厚度小于10^-10的非常小的粒子组成的集合。这些天体的半长轴应该在九头蛇目前的轨道之外。

英文摘要:

Motivated by the New Horizons mission, we consider how Pluto's small satellites -- currently Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra -- grow in debris from the giant impact that forms the Pluto-Charon binary. After the impact, Pluto and Charon accrete some of the debris and eject the rest from the binary orbit. During the ejection, high velocity collisions among debris particles produce a collisional cascade, leading to the ejection of some debris from the system and enabling the remaining debris particles to find stable orbits around the binary. Our numerical simulations of coagulation and migration show that collisional evolution within a ring or a disk of debris leads to a few small satellites orbiting Pluto-Charon. These simulations are the first to demonstrate migration-induced mergers within a particle disk. The final satellite masses correlate with the initial disk mass. More massive disks tend to produce fewer satellites. For the current properties of the satellites, our results strongly favor initial debris masses of 3-10 x 10^{19} g and current satellite albedos of roughly 0.4-1. We also predict an ensemble of smaller satellites with radii less than roughly 1-3 km, and very small particles, with radii of roughly 1-100 cm and optical depth smaller than 10^-10. These objects should have semimajor axes outside the current orbit of Hydra.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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