TY - JOUR
T1 - The fate of debris in the Pluto-Charon system
AU - Smullen, Rachel A.
AU - Kratter, Kaitlin M.
N1 - Funding Information:
helpful discussions pertaining to this work. RAS is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1410174 and Grant No. DGE-1143953. KMK is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1410174. The numerical simulations presented herein were run on the El Gato supercomputer that is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1228509.
Funding Information:
Our gratitude to our anonymous referee for insightful comments that improved this manuscript. Sincere thanks to Alex Parker, Renu Malhotra, Kathryn Volk, Andrew Shannon and Matija ?uk for helpful discussions pertaining to this work. RAS is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1410174 and Grant No. DGE-1143953. KMK is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1410174. The numerical simulations presented herein were run on the El Gato supercomputer that is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1228509.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society
PY - 2017/5/1
Y1 - 2017/5/1
N2 - The Pluto-Charon system has come into sharper focus following the flyby of New Horizons. We use N-body simulations to probe the unique dynamical history of this binary dwarf planet system. We follow the evolution of the debris disc that might have formed during the Charon-forming giant impact. First, we note that in situ formation of the four circumbinary moons is extremely difficult if Charon undergoes eccentric tidal evolution. We track collisions of disc debris with Charon, estimating that hundreds to hundreds of thousands of visible craters might arise from 0.3-5 km radius bodies. New Horizons data suggesting a dearth of these small craters may place constraints on the disc properties. While tidal heating will erase some of the cratering history, both tidal and radiogenic heating may also make it possible to differentiate disc debris craters from Kuiper belt object craters. We also track the debris ejected from the Pluto-Charon system into the Solar system; while most of this debris is ultimately lost from the Solar system, a few tens of 10-30 km radius bodies could survive as a Pluto-Charon collisional family. Most are plutinos in the 3:2 resonance with Neptune, while a small number populate nearby resonances. We show that migration of the giant planets early in the Solar system's history would not destroy this collisional family. Finally, we suggest that identification of such a family would likely need to be based on composition as they show minimal clustering in relevant orbital parameters.
AB - The Pluto-Charon system has come into sharper focus following the flyby of New Horizons. We use N-body simulations to probe the unique dynamical history of this binary dwarf planet system. We follow the evolution of the debris disc that might have formed during the Charon-forming giant impact. First, we note that in situ formation of the four circumbinary moons is extremely difficult if Charon undergoes eccentric tidal evolution. We track collisions of disc debris with Charon, estimating that hundreds to hundreds of thousands of visible craters might arise from 0.3-5 km radius bodies. New Horizons data suggesting a dearth of these small craters may place constraints on the disc properties. While tidal heating will erase some of the cratering history, both tidal and radiogenic heating may also make it possible to differentiate disc debris craters from Kuiper belt object craters. We also track the debris ejected from the Pluto-Charon system into the Solar system; while most of this debris is ultimately lost from the Solar system, a few tens of 10-30 km radius bodies could survive as a Pluto-Charon collisional family. Most are plutinos in the 3:2 resonance with Neptune, while a small number populate nearby resonances. We show that migration of the giant planets early in the Solar system's history would not destroy this collisional family. Finally, we suggest that identification of such a family would likely need to be based on composition as they show minimal clustering in relevant orbital parameters.
KW - Kuiper belt objects: individual: Pluto
KW - Planet-disc interactions
KW - Planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability
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U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stw3386
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stw3386
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045679615
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 466
SP - 4480
EP - 4491
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 4
ER -