Secular families

Abstract

There are currently more than half a million asteroids in the main belt and the number is constantly increasing, because of observational surveys, accidental discoveries, etc. Among the growing population of objects, a few asteroidgroups are of particular interests because of dynamical or taxonomical reasons. Some asteroids belong to families, groups of objects that clusterin domains of proper elements or frequencies, and that are supposed to share a common origin in the collisional event that shattered the parent body.Out of the more than a hundred currently known families, a few are characterized by their interaction with strong mean-motion or secular resonances, such as for instance the case of the Tina family, which is currently in states of anti-aligned libration of the ${\nu}_6$ secular resonance (Carruba and Morbidelli 2011). Or the Agnia and Padua families, a majority of whose members are in librating states of the $z_1$ non-linear secular resonance (Vokrouhlický et al. 2006b, Carruba 2009). Because of their peculiarorbital configuration, and of the preservation of conserved quantities of their resonances, additional information can be obtained on the original ejection velocity field of these families, not obtainable for other families not in such orbital configurations. In this project we aim to investigate in detail the dynamics of families that interact with secular resonances that were not yet investigated. Among these, the ongoing work on the Euphrosyne family, unique for its interaction with the ${\nu}_6$ secular resonance, that seems to have caused a depletion in the number of large- and medium-sized objects in this family, and the families of Sylvia (interaction with the $z_1$ resonance) and Erigone ((interaction with the $z_2$ resonance) are all excellent candidates for studying in details the diffusion processes of families interacting with secular resonances. (AU)