The population of asteroids in the 2:1 mean motion resonance with Jupiter revised

Abstract

We study the population of asteroids inside the 2/1 mean motion resonance with Jupiter, in the so called Hecuba gap. Origin of these bodies is not well understood: (i) the long-lived (stable) population may be primordial, but this contradicts its steep size distribution, while (ii) the short-lived (unstable) population requires an efficient sustaining mechanism. Our working hypothesis is that the unstable asteroids are continuously resupplied from outside the resonance by the Yarkovsky effect. As a first step toward comparison of such model with observations, we report here an update of the observed population of asteroids residing in the 2/1 Jovian resonance, mainly because the number of cataloged orbits increased substantially during the last few years. We found there are 153 numbered and multi-opposition resonant asteroids in total and we classified them into the three sub-populations according to their dynamical lifetime. Our work also allowed us to derive several important parameters such as asteroid locations inside the resonance or size distribution of the sub-populations. As a particular novelty, we identified 6 asteroids located inside the high-eccentricity quasi-regular stable island, which previously seemed empty.To search for other articles by the author(s) go to: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html