Dust grains in mean motion orbital resonances with a planet

Abstract

The orbital evolution of interplanetary dust particles in the Solar System is governed by gravitational and non-gravitational forces. Non-gravitational effects become more significant with decreasing size of dust grains and the effects are relevant on long-time scales. This work considers action of the solar corpuscular radiation in the form of solar wind, solar electromagnetic radiation in the form of the Poynting-Robertson (P-R) effect and gravitational attraction of the Sun and planets. The solar wind influences the evolution of dust grains more significantly than the P-R effect.The paper focuses on mean motion orbital resonances of a dust particle with a planet. We deal with the effect of non-gravitational forces in the restricted three body problem and we also investigate the stability of the equilibrium solution. The motion of the dust grain near the equilibrium points L4 and L5 can be stable under certain circumstances. The analytical results are also supported by numerical calculations.