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S. M. Giuliatti Winter (UNESP/INPE-Brazil), M. A. Ferreira Gonsalves (INPE/Brazil), O. Winter (UNESP/INPE-Brazil), D. Cardozo Mourao (INPE/Brazil)
The arrival of the Cassini spacecraft to the saturnian system brought a huge amount of data. Among them there is the discovery of three satellites close to the F ring (S/2004 S3, S/2004 S4 and S/2004 S6) and two tenuous rings, one close to the satellite Prometheus (R 2004/S2) and other coorbital to the satellite Atlas (R 2004/ S1). Before the inclusion of these new bodies, this region already had some unexplained features. The F ring presents strands, kinks and clumps probably related to the close satellites Prometheus and Pandora and embedded moonlets. In this work we analysed the behaviour of the ring particles strands disturbed by a sample of small objects varying in size and orbital elements. The new discovered objects is part of this sample of objects. As an example, we showed that an object of 10km in radius forms a gap in the outer strand. There are no scattered particles, the gap is formed by particles which collide with the object. We also analysed a sample of hypothetical objects lying in the F ring region taking into account the perturbation of Prometheus, Pandora and the oblateness of Saturn. This analysis is primarily performed using the secular perturbation theory. Then we computed the Lyapunov characteristic exponent for these objects. These results are presented for a range of semi major axes and eccentricities. By using numerical simulation we can verify that the perturbation of Prometheus on the new rings causes a variation only in R 2004/S2. This perturbation is enough to open a gap and scatter particles in the direction of the F ring region.
Acknowledgements: SMGW thanks FUNDUNESP, OCW thanks FUNDUNESP and CNPq, MAFG and DCM thank CAPES for the financial support.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.