The orbital evolution of Atira asteroids

TL;DR

This study investigates the long-term orbital evolution of Atira asteroids, including the Yarkovsky effect, revealing their potential transition to Vatiras and estimating their population sizes.

Contribution

It is the first to analyze the combined effects of planetary perturbations and the Yarkovsky force on Atira and Vatira asteroids over long timescales.

Findings

Approximately 13% transition probability from Atira to Vatira class.

Estimated 8.14 Atira-class and 1.05 Vatira-class S-type asteroids exist.

Yarkovsky effect influences the long-term dynamical evolution of these asteroids.

Abstract

Asteroids having perihelion distance $q$ $<$ 1.3 AU are classified as near-Earth objects (NEOs), which are divided into different sub-groups: Vatira-class, Atira-class, Aten-class, Apollo-class, and Amor-class. 2020 $AV_2$, the first Vatira (Orbiting totally inside Venus' orbit) was discovered by the Twilight project of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) on January 4, 2020. Upon the discovery of 2020 $AV_2$, a couple of orbital studies of the short-term orbital evolution of 2020 $AV_2$ have been performed and published (e.g. de la Fuente Marcos & de la Fuente Marcos 2020; Greenstreet 2020). In this present work, we performed an assessment of the long-term orbital evolution of known near-Earth objects and known Atiras under the Yarkovsky effect by using the \textit{Mercury6} N-body code. We considered not only planetary gravitational perturbation but also the non-gravitational Yarkovsky effect. Our calculation shows that the NEOs have generally two dynamical populations, one short-lived and the other long-lived. From our calculation, the transfer probabilities of Atira-class asteroids to Vatira-class asteroids for the first transition are $\sim$13.1 $\pm$ 0.400, $\sim$13.05 $\pm$ 0.005, and $\sim$ 13.25 $\pm$ 0.450 $\%$ for different values of the Yarkovsky force (i.e. obliquity of 0, 90, and 180 deg.), respectively. It suggests that the radiation force may play some role in the long-term evolution of this asteroid population. Finally, our statistical study implicates that there should be 8.14 $\pm$ 0.133 Atira-class asteroids and 1.05 $\pm$ 0.075 Vatira-asteroids of the S-type taxonomy.