Where are the Uranus Trojans?

TL;DR

This study investigates the stable regions for hypothetical Trojan asteroids around Uranus' L4 and L5 points using numerical simulations, revealing specific inclination windows where stability is possible over the Solar System's age.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the stability regions for Uranus Trojans considering inclination and semimajor axis variations over 5 billion years.

Findings

Stable regions exist between 19.05 and 19.3 AU in semimajor axis.

Four inclination windows support long-term stability: 0-7°, 9-13°, 31-36°, 38-50°.

Stable Trojans are postulated at both low and high inclinations.

Abstract

The area of stable motion for fictitious Trojan asteroids around Uranus' equilateral equilibrium points is investigated with respect to the inclination of the asteroid's orbit to determine the size of the regions and their shape. For this task we used the results of extensive numerical integrations of orbits for a grid of initial conditions around the points L4 and L5, and analyzed the stability of the individual orbits. Our basic dynamical model was the Outer Solar System (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). We integrated the equations of motion of fictitious Trojans in the vicinity of the stable equilibrium points for selected orbits up to the age of the Solar system of 5 billion years. One experiment has been undertaken for cuts through the Lagrange points for fixed values of the inclinations, while the semimajor axes were varied. The extension of the stable region with respect to the initial semimajor axis lies between 19.05 < a < 19.3 AU but depends on the initial inclination. In another run the inclination of the asteroids' orbit was varied in the range 0 < i < 60 and the semimajor axes were fixed. It turned out that only four 'windows' of stable orbits survive: these are the orbits for the initial inclinations 0 < i < 7, 9 < i < 13, 31 < i < 36 and 38 < i < 50. We postulate the existence of at least some Trojans around the Uranus Lagrange points for the stability window at small and also high inclinations.