The ballistic transport instability in Saturn's rings - III. Numerical simulations

Abstract

Saturn's inner B-ring and its C-ring support wavetrains of contrasting amplitudes but with similar length scales, 100-1000 km. In addition, the inner B-ring is punctuated by two intriguing `flat' regions between radii 93,000 km and 98,000 km in which the waves die out, whereas the C-ring waves coexist with a forest of plateaus, narrow ringlets, and gaps. In both regions the waves are probably generated by a large-scale linear instability whose origin lies in the meteoritic bombardment of the rings: the ballistic transport instability. In this paper, the third in a series, we numerically simulate the long-term nonlinear evolution of this instability in a convenient local model. Our C-ring simulations confirm that the unstable system forms low-amplitude wavetrains possessing a preferred band of wavelengths. B-ring simulations, on the other hand, exhibit localised nonlinear wave `packets' separated by linearly stable flat zones. Wave packets travel slowly while spreading in time, a result that suggests the observed flat regions in Saturn's B-ring are shrinking. Finally, we present exploratory runs of the inner B-ring edge which reproduce earlier numerical results: ballistic transport can maintain the sharpness of a spreading edge while building a `ramp' structure at its base. Moreover, the ballistic transport instability can afflict the ramp region, but only in low-viscosity runs.