THE ROLE OF MEAN-MOTION RESONANCES IN SEMIMAJOR AXIS MOBILITY OF ASTEROIDS

Here, we report our findings about the effect of 11 two-body mean-motion resonances (MMRs) with Jupiter, on the mobility of an asteroid's semimajor axis caused by the Yarkovsky effect. This study is accomplished using numerical integrations of test particles. The obtained results reveal that MMRs could either speed up or slow down the drift in the semimajor axis. Moreover, this allows us to determine the distribution that represents the best data obtained for time delays dtr caused by the resonances on the mobility of an asteroid. We also found a certain functional relationship that describes dependence of the average time lead/lag < dtr > on the strength of the resonance SR and the semimajor axis drift speed da/dt. As the Yarkovsky effect scales as 1/D, an important consequence of this relationship is that average time lead/lag < dtr > is directly proportional to the diameter D of an asteroid.