Detailed survey of the phase space around Nix and Hydra

Authors: Süli, Á.; Zsigmond, Zs.

Source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 398, Number 4, October 2009 , pp. 2199-2208(10)

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Abstract:

We present a detailed survey of the dynamical structure of the phase space around the new moons of the Pluto-Charon system. The spatial elliptic restricted three-body problem was used as model and stability maps were created by chaos indicators. The orbital elements of the moons are in the stable domain on the semimajor axis, eccentricity and inclination spaces. The structures related to the 4:1 and 6:1 mean motion resonances are clearly visible on the maps. They do not contain the positions of the moons, confirming previous studies. We showed the possibility that Nix might be in the 4:1 resonance if its argument of pericentre or longitude of node falls in a certain range. The results strongly suggest that Hydra is not in the 6:1 resonance for arbitrary values of the argument of pericentre or longitude of node.

Keywords: methods: numerical; celestial mechanics; planets and satellites: general

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15274.x

Affiliations: 1: Department of Astronomy, Loránd Eötvös University, Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, Budapest H-1117, Hungary

Publication date: 2009-10-01