Characterisation of chaos in meteoroid streams

Application to the Geminids

IMCCE, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, UPMC Univ. Paris 6, Univ. Lille, 77 avenue Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris, France
e-mail: ariane.courtot@obspm.fr

Received: 20 October 2022
Accepted: 28 March 2023

Abstract

Context. Dynamically linking a meteor shower with its parent body can be challenging. This is in part due to the limits of the tools available today (such as D-criteria) but is also due to the complex dynamics of meteoroid streams.

Aims. We choose a method to study chaos in meteoroid streams and apply it to the Geminid meteoroid stream.

Methods. We decided to draw chaos maps. Amongst the chaos indicators we studied, we show that the orthogonal fast Lyapunov indicator is particularly well suited to our problem. The maps are drawn for three bin sizes, ranging from 10⁻¹ to 10⁻⁴ m.

Results. We show the influence of mean-motion resonances with the Earth and with Venus, which tend to trap the largest particles. The chaos maps present three distinct regimes in eccentricity, reflecting close encounters with the planets. We also study the effect of non-gravitational forces. We determine a first approximation of the particle size r_lim needed to counterbalance the resonances with the diffusion due to the non-gravitational forces. We find that, for the Geminids, r_lim lies in the range [3; 8] × 10⁻⁴ m. However, r_lim depends on the orbital phase space.