Paper: astro-ph/0506656
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:00:07 GMT (455kb)

Title: On the V-type asteroids outside the Vesta family. I. Interplay of
nonlinear secular resonances and the Yarkovsky effect: the cases of 956 Elisa
and 809 Lundia

Authors: Valerio Carruba, Tatiana Michtchenko, Fernando Roig, Sylvio
Ferraz-Mello, David Nesvorny'
Comments: 14 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A
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Among the largest objects in the main belt, asteroid 4 Vesta is unique in
showing a basaltic crust. It is also the biggest member of the Vesta family,
which is supposed to originate from a large cratering event about 1 Gyr ago
(Marzari et al. 1996). Most of the members of the Vesta family for which a
spectral classification is available show a V-type spectra. Before the
discovery of 1459 Magnya (Lazzaro et al. 2000) and of several V-type NEA (Xu
1995), all the known V-type asteroids were members of the Vesta family.
Recently two V-type asteroids, 809 Lundia and 956 Elisa, (Florczak et al. 2002)
have been discovered well outside the limits of the family, near the Flora
family. We currently know 22 V-type asteroids outside the family, in the inner
asteroid belt. In this work we investigate the possibility that these objects
are former family members that migrated to their current positions via the
interplay of Yarkovsky effect and nonlinear secular resonances. The main
dynamical feature of 956 Elisa and 809 Lundia is that they are currently inside
the 2(g-g6)+s-s6 (z2 by Milani and Knezevic, 1993) secular resonance. Our
investigations show that members of the Vesta dynamical family may drift in
three-body and weak secular resonances until they are captured in the strong z2
secular resonance. Only asteroids with diameters larger than 16 km can remain
in one of the three-body or secular resonances long enough to reach the region
of the z2 resonance. This two-step mechanism of capture into the z2 resonance
could explain: i) the current resonant orbits of 956 Elisa and 809 Lundia, ii)
why their size is significantly larger than that of the typical member of the
Vesta family, and iii) provide a lower limit on the Vesta family age.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0506656 , 455kb)