科研之友
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摘要
A ring system consisting of two dense narrow rings has been discovered around Centaur Chariklo. The existence of these rings around a small object poses various questions about their origin, stability, and lifetime. In order to understand the nature of Chariklo's rings, we perform global N-body simulations of the self-gravitating collisional particle rings for the first time. We find that Chariklo should be denser than the ring material in order to avoid the rapid diffusion of the rings. If Chariklo is denser than the ring material, fine spiral structures called self-gravity wakes occur in the inner ring. These wakes accelerate the viscous spreading of the ring significantly and typically occur on timescales of about 100 years for m-sized ring particles, which is considerably shorter than the timescales suggested in previous studies. The existence of these narrow rings implies smaller ring particles or the existence of shepherding satellites.
- 出版日期2017-3-1
- 单位中国科学院国家天文台
