Paper detail

On the Secondary's Rotation in Synchronous Binary Asteroid

This paper studies the secondary's rotation in a synchronous binary asteroid system in which the secondary enters the 1:1 spin-orbit resonance. The model used is the planar full two-body problem composed of a spherical primary plus a tri-axial ellipsoid secondary. Compared with classical spin-orbit work, there are two differences: (1) Influence on the mutual orbit from the secondary's rotation is considered; (2) Instead of the Hamiltonian approach, the approach of periodic orbits is adopted. Our studies find: (1) Genealogy of the two families of periodic orbits is same as that of the families around triangular libration points in the restricted three-body problem. That is, the long-period family terminates onto a short-period orbit travelling N times; (2) In the limiting case where the secondary's mass is negligible, our results can be reduced to the classical spin-orbit theory, by equating the long-period orbit with the free libration, and by equating the short-period orbit with the forced libration caused by orbit eccentricity. However, the two models show obvious differences when the secondary's mass is non-negligible. (3) By studying the stability of periodic orbits, for a specific binary asteroid system, we are able to obtain the maximum libration amplitude of the secondary (which is usually less than 90 degree), and the maximum mutual orbit eccentricity which does not break the secondary's synchronous state. We also find the anti-correlation between the secondary's libration amplitude and the orbit eccentricity. The (65803) Didymos system is taken as an example to show the results.