Did the Hilda collisional family form during the late heavy bombardment?

TL;DR

This study models the Hilda asteroid family's evolution, estimating its age at around 4 billion years, and suggests it likely formed during the Late Heavy Bombardment due to higher early collisional activity.

Contribution

It provides the first estimate of the Hilda family's age and links its formation to the Late Heavy Bombardment, incorporating planetary migration scenarios.

Findings

Hilda family age estimated at ~4 Gyr.

Low current collisional rates imply formation during LHB.

Fast planetary migration scenarios fit observed family distribution.

Abstract

We model the long-term evolution of the Hilda collisional family located in the 3/2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. Its eccentricity distribution evolves mostly due to the Yarkovsky/YORP effect and assuming that: (i) impact disruption was isotropic, and (ii) albedo distribution of small asteroids is the same as for large ones, we can estimate the age of the Hilda family to be $4_{-1}^{+0}\,{\rm Gyr}$. We also calculate collisional activity in the J3/2 region. Our results indicate that current collisional rates are very low for a 200\,km parent body such that the number of expected events over Gyrs is much smaller than one. The large age and the low probability of the collisional disruption lead us to the conclusion that the Hilda family might have been created during the Late Heavy Bombardment when the collisions were much more frequent. The Hilda family may thus serve as a test of orbital behavior of planets during the LHB. We tested the influence of the giant-planet migration on the distribution of the family members. The scenarios that are consistent with the observed Hilda family are those with fast migration time scales $\simeq 0.3\,{\rm Myr}$ to $3\,{\rm Myr}$, because longer time scales produce a family that is depleted and too much spread in eccentricity. Moreover, there is an indication that Jupiter and Saturn were no longer in a compact configuration (with period ratio $P_{\rm S}/P_{\rm J} > 2.09$) at the time when the Hilda family was created.