Modeling the evection resonance for trojan satellites: application to the Saturn system

TL;DR

This paper develops an analytical and numerical study of the evection resonance's impact on trojan satellites, focusing on Saturn's moons, revealing how resonance influences their stability and past orbital configurations.

Contribution

It introduces an analytic model for the evection resonance in trojan pairs and compares it with numerical simulations, highlighting differences from single satellite cases.

Findings

The phase space structure for trojan satellites resembles that of single satellites.

Libration centers are shifted depending on the periastron difference and mass ratio.

Rhea's past may have involved crossing the evection resonance, affecting its satellite system.

Abstract

The stability of satellites in the solar system is affected by the so-called evection resonance. The moons of Saturn, in particular, exhibit a complex dynamical architecture in which co-orbital configurations occur, especially close to the planet where this resonance is present. We address the dynamics of the evection resonance, with particular focus on the Saturn system, and compare the known behavior of the resonance for a single moon to that of a pair of moons in co-orbital trojan configuration. We developed an analytic expansion of the averaged Hamiltonian of a trojan pair of bodies, including the perturbation from a distant massive body. {The analysis of the corresponding equilibrium points was restricted to the asymmetric apsidal corotation solution of the co-orbital dynamics.} We also performed numerical N-body simulations to construct dynamical maps of the stability of the evection resonance in the Saturn system, and to study the effects of this resonance under the migration of trojan moons caused by tidal dissipation. The structure of the phase space of the evection resonance for trojan satellites is similar to that of a single satellite, differing in that the libration centers are displaced from their standard positions by an angle that depends on the periastron difference $\varpi_2-\varpi_1$ and on the mass ratio $m_2/m_1$ of the trojan pair. The interaction with the inner evection resonance may have been relevant during the early evolution of the Saturn moons Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. In particular, Rhea may have had trojan companions in the past that were lost when it crossed the evection resonance, while Tethys and Dione may either have retained their trojans or have never crossed the evection. This may help to constrain the dynamical processes that led to the migration of these satellites and to the evection itself.