Analytical description of physical librations of Saturnian coorbital satellites Janus and Epimetheus

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical model describing how the orbital swap of Saturnian coorbital satellites Janus and Epimetheus affects their physical librations, validated by numerical simulations and considering short-period librations.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism using quasi-periodic series to analytically describe librations influenced by orbital swaps, extending previous shape-based models.

Findings

Analytical quasi-periodic development matches numerical simulations.

Libration amplitude at orbital period is proportional to orbital swap effects.

Short-period librations are analyzed with an adiabatic-like approach.

Abstract

Janus and Epimetheus are famously known for their distinctive horseshoe-shaped orbits resulting from a 1:1 orbital resonance. Every four years these two satellites swap their orbits by a few tens of kilometers as a result of their close encounter. Recently Tiscareno et al. (2009) have proposed a model of rotation based on images from the Cassini orbiter. These authors inferred the amplitude of rotational librational motion in longitude at the orbital period by fitting a shape model to the recent Cassini ISS images. By a quasiperiodic approximation of the orbital motion, we describe how the orbital swap impacts the rotation of the satellites. To that purpose, we have developed a formalism based on quasi-periodic series with long and short-period librations. In this framework, the amplitude of the libration at the orbital period is found proportional to a term accounting for the orbital swap. We checked the analytical quasi-periodic development by performing a numerical simulation and find both results in good agreement. To complete this study, the results regarding the short-period librations are studied with the help of an adiabatic-like approach.