Motion of dust in mean-motion resonances with planets

TL;DR

This paper investigates how electromagnetic radiation affects dust particles in mean-motion resonances with planets, revealing that their orbital evolution is complex and depends on factors like particle shape and optical properties.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of dust particle dynamics in resonances considering the Poynting-Robertson effect, including the impact of optical property changes and the non-existence of simple analytic expressions.

Findings

Eccentricity evolution is monotonic in circular restricted three-body problem.

Nonmonotonous eccentricity evolution occurs when considering elliptical orbits or nonspherical grains.

Change in optical properties mainly shifts the pericenter orientation without affecting eccentricity evolution.

Abstract

Effect of stellar electromagnetic radiation on motion of spherical dust particle in mean-motion orbital resonances with a planet is investigated. Planar circular restricted three-body problem with the Poynting-Robertson (P-R) effect yields monotonous secular evolution of eccentricity when the particle is trapped in the resonance. Elliptically restricted three-body problem with the P-R effect enables nonmonotonous secular evolution of eccentricity and the evolution of eccentricity is qualitatively consistent with the published results for the complicated case of interaction of electromagnetic radiation with nonspherical dust grain. Thus, it is sufficient to allow either nonzero eccentricity of the planet or nonsphericity of the grain and the orbital evolutions in the resonances are qualitatively equal for the two cases. This holds both for exterior and interior mean-motion orbital resonances. Evolutions of longitude of pericenter in the planar circular and elliptical restricted three-body problems are shown. Our numerical integrations suggest that any analytic expression for secular time derivative of the particle's longitude of pericenter does not exist, if a dependence on semi-major axis, eccentricity and longitude of pericenter is considered (the P-R effect and mean-motion resonance with the planet in circular orbit is taken into account). Change of optical properties of the spherical grain with the heliocentric distance is also considered. The change of the optical properties: i) does not have any significant influence on secular evolution of eccentricity, ii) causes that the shift of pericenter is mainly in the same direction/orientation as the particle motion around the Sun. The statements hold both for circular and noncircular planetary orbits.