35 research outputs found
Effects of Meteoroid Erosion in Planetary Rings
This grant supported continuing studies of the effects of ballistic transport on the evolution of Saturn's rings. Ballistic transport, as used in this context, refers to the net transport of mass and angular momentum caused by the exchange of meteoroid impact ejecta between neighboring ring regions (Ip 1983, 1984, Morfill et al. 1983, Lissauer 1984, Durisen 1984a,b). The characteristic time scale associated with this process is the gross erosion time t(sub g) the time it would take a ring region to be completed eroded if all impact ejecta were lost. This time scale is estimated to be about 10(exp 5) to 10(exp 6) years for a ring region with normal optical depth tau approximately 1. Earlier work by myself and collaborators developed the physical theory and simulation techniques to model this process (Durisen et al. 1989, Cuzzi and Durisen 1990). Detailed simulations, supported in part by this grant, have demonstrated that ballistic transport can produce observed structures in Saturn's rings, especially at and near the inner edges of the A and B Rings (Durisen et al. 1992, 1996). The structures of interest in the real rings are illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. Most of these structures were previously unexplained. The computational results plus analytic treatments place useful constraints on fundamental ring properties, including the indication of a relatively young ring age less than or equal 10(exp 8) years (see reviews by Nicholson and Dones 1991, Esposito 1993, Cuzzi 1995, and Porco 1995). This grant also supported development of the faster computational algorithms necessary to permit longer evolutions. Resulting simplications in the ballistic transport equations permitted an analytic linear stability analysis (Durisen 1995), which has provided considerable insight into ballistic transport processes and applications to Saturn's rings. All these accomplishments are described in more detail below
Planetary ring dynamics and morphology
Evidence for a moonlet belt in the region between Saturn's close-in moonrings Pandora and Prometheus is discussed. It is argued that little-known observations of magnetospheric electron density by Pioneer 11 imply substantial, ongoing injections of mass into the 2000 km region which surrounds the F ring. A hypothesis is presented that these events result naturally from interparticle collisions between the smaller members of an optically thin belt of moonlets. Also discussed is work on Uranus ring structure and photometry, image processing and analysis of the Jonian ring strucure, photometric and structural studies of the A ring of Saturn, and improvements to an image processing system for ring studies
Constraints on the initial mass, age and lifetime of Saturn's rings from viscous evolutions that include pollution and transport due to micrometeoroid bombardment
The Cassini spacecraft provided key measurements during its more than twelve
year mission that constrain the absolute age of Saturn's rings. These include
the extrinsic micrometeoroid flux at Saturn, the volume fraction of non-icy
pollutants in the rings, and a measurement of the ring mass. These observations
taken together limit the ring exposure age to be < a few 100 Myr if the flux
was persistent over that time (Kempf et al., 2023). In addition, Cassini
observations during the Grand Finale further indicate the rings are losing mass
(Hsu et al., 2018; Waite et al., 2018) suggesting the rings are ephemeral as
well. In a companion paper (Durisen and Estrada, 2023), we show that the
effects of micrometeoroid bombardment and ballistic transport of their impact
ejecta can account for these loss rates for reasonable parameter choices. In
this paper, we conduct numerical simulations of an evolving ring in a
systematic way in order to determine initial conditions that are consistent
with these observations.Comment: 31 pages, 19 figures, 2 tables, Published in Icaru
Planetary ring studies
The following topics are covered: (1) characterization of the fine scale structure in Saturn's A and B rings; (2) ballistic transport modeling and evolution of fine ring structure; (3) faint features in the rings of Saturn; (4) the Encke moonlet; (5) dynamics in ringmoon systems; (6) a nonclassical radiative transfer model; and (7) particle properties from stellar occultation data
Combined Structural and Compositional Evolution of Planetary Rings Due to Micrometeoroid Impacts and Ballistic Transport
We introduce improved numerical techniques for simulating the structural and compositional evolution of planetary rings due to micrometeoroid bombardment and subsequent ballistic transport of impact ejecta. Our current, robust code is capable of modeling structural changes and pollution transport simultaneously over long times on both local and global scales. In this paper, we describe the methodology based on the original structural code of Durisen et al. (1989, Icarus 80, 136-166) and on the pollution transport code of Cuzzi and Estrada (1998, Icarus 132, 1-35). We provide demonstrative simulations to compare with, and extend upon previous work, as well as examples of how ballistic transport can maintain the observed structure in Saturn's rings using available Cassini occultation optical depth data. In particular, we explicitly verify the claim that the inner B (and presumably A) ring edge can be maintained over long periods of time due to an ejecta distribution that is heavily biased in the prograde direction through a balance between the sharpening effects of ballistic transport and the broadening effects of viscosity. We also see that a "ramp"-like feature forms over time just inside that edge. However, it does not remain linear for the duration of the runs presented here unless a less steep ejecta velocity distribution is adopted. We also model the C ring plateaus and find that their outer edges can be maintained at their observed sharpness for long periods due to ballistic transport. We hypothesize that the addition of a significant component of a retrograde-biased ejecta distribution may help explain the linearity of the ramp and is probably essential for maintaining the sharpness of C ring plateau inner edges. This component would arise for the subset of micrometeoroid impacts which are destructive rather than merely cratering. Such a distribution will be introduced in future work
On The Possibility of Enrichment and Differentiation in Gas Giants During Birth by Disk Instability
We investigate the coupling between rock-size solids and gas during the
formation of gas giant planets by disk fragmentation in the outer regions of
massive disks. In this study, we use three-dimensional radiative hydrodynamics
simulations and model solids as a spatial distribution of particles. We assume
that half of the total solid fraction is in small grains and half in large
solids. The former are perfectly entrained with the gas and set the opacity in
the disk, while the latter are allowed to respond to gas drag forces, with the
back reaction on the gas taken into account. To explore the maximum effects of
gas-solid interactions, we first consider 10cm-size particles. We then compare
these results to a simulation with 1 km-size particles, which explores the
low-drag regime. We show that (1) disk instability planets have the potential
to form large cores due to aerodynamic capturing of rock-size solids in spiral
arms before fragmentation; (2) that temporary clumps can concentrate tens of
of solids in very localized regions before clump disruption; (3)
that the formation of permanent clumps, even in the outer disk, is dependent on
the grain-size distribution, i.e., the opacity; (4) that nonaxisymmetric
structure in the disk can create disk regions that have a solids-to-gas ratio
greater than unity; (5) that the solid distribution may affect the
fragmentation process; (6) that proto-gas giants and proto-brown dwarfs can
start as differentiated objects prior to the H collapse phase; (7) that
spiral arms in a gravitationally unstable disk are able to stop the inward
drift of rock-size solids, even redistributing them to larger radii; and, (8)
that large solids can form spiral arms that are offset from the gaseous spiral
arms. We conclude that planet embryo formation can be strongly affected by the
growth of solids during the earliest stages of disk accretion.Comment: Accepted by ApJ. 55 pages including 24 figures. In response to
comments from the referee, we have included a new simulation with km-size
objects and have revised some discussions and interpretations. Major
conclusions remain unchanged, and new conclusions have been added in response
to the new ru