TY - JOUR A1 - Seiß, Martin A1 - Albers, Nicole A1 - Sremčević, Miodrag A1 - Schmidt, Jürgen A1 - Salo, Heikki A1 - Seiler, Michael A1 - Hoffmann, Holger A1 - Spahn, Frank T1 - Hydrodynamic Simulations of Moonlet-induced Propellers in Saturn's Rings BT - Application to Bleriot JF - The astronomical journal N2 - One of the biggest successes of the Cassini mission is the detection of small moons (moonlets) embedded in Saturns rings that cause S-shaped density structures in their close vicinity, called propellers. Here, we present isothermal hydrodynamic simulations of moonlet-induced propellers in Saturn's A ring that denote a further development of the original model. We find excellent agreement between these new hydrodynamic and corresponding N-body simulations. Furthermore, the hydrodynamic simulations confirm the predicted scaling laws and the analytical solution for the density in the propeller gaps. Finally, this mean field approach allows us to simulate the pattern of the giant propeller Blériot, which is too large to be modeled by direct N-body simulations. Our results are compared to two stellar occultation observations by the Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS), which intersect the propeller Blériot. Best fits to the UVIS optical depth profiles are achieved for a Hill radius of 590 m, which implies a moonlet diameter of about 860 m. Furthermore, the model favors a kinematic shear viscosity of the surrounding ring material of ν0 = 340 cm2 s−1, a dispersion velocity in the range of 0.3 cm s−1 < c0 < 1.5 cm s−1, and a fairly high bulk viscosity 7 < ξ0/ν0 < 17. These large transport values might be overestimated by our isothermal ring model and should be reviewed by an extended model including thermal fluctuations. KW - diffusion KW - hydrodynamics KW - planets and satellites: rings Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/aaed44 SN - 0004-6256 SN - 1538-3881 VL - 157 IS - 1 PB - IOP Publishing Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Guimaraes, Ana H. F. A1 - Albers, Nicole A1 - Spahn, Frank A1 - Seiss, Martin A1 - Vieira-Neto, Ernesto A1 - Brilliantov, Nikolai V. T1 - Aggregates in the strength and gravity regime Particles sizes in Saturn's rings JF - Icarus : international journal of solar system studies N2 - Particles in Saturn's main rings range in size from dust to kilometer-sized objects. Their size distribution is thought to be a result of competing accretion and fragmentation processes. While growth is naturally limited in tidal environments, frequent collisions among these objects may contribute to both accretion and fragmentation. As ring particles are primarily made of water ice attractive surface forces like adhesion could significantly influence these processes, finally determining the resulting size distribution. Here, we derive analytic expressions for the specific self-energy Q and related specific break-up energy Q(star) of aggregates. These expressions can be used for any aggregate type composed of monomeric constituents. We compare these expressions to numerical experiments where we create aggregates of various types including: regular packings like the face-centered cubic (fcc), Ballistic Particle Cluster Aggregates (BPCA), and modified BPCAs including e.g. different constituent size distributions. We show that accounting for attractive surface forces such as adhesion a simple approach is able to: (a) generally account for the size dependence of the specific break-up energy for fragmentation to occur reported in the literature, namely the division into "strength" and "gravity" regimes and (b) estimate the maximum aggregate size in a collisional ensemble to be on the order of a few tens of meters, consistent with the maximum particle size observed in Saturn's rings of about 10 m. KW - Collisional physics KW - Accretion KW - Planetary rings KW - Saturn, Rings Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2012.06.005 SN - 0019-1035 SN - 1090-2643 VL - 220 IS - 2 SP - 660 EP - 678 PB - Elsevier CY - San Diego ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spahn, Frank A1 - Albers, Nicole A1 - Sremcevic, Miodrag A1 - Thornton, C. T1 - Kinetic description of coagulation and fragmentation in dilute granular particle ensembles N2 - We derive kinetic equations covering coagulation and fragmentation of granular gases including a combined dynamics of the mass spectrum and the velocity distribution. We will focus on coagulation; that can only occur at low impact velocities where attractive forces and dissipation prevent a post-collisional separation. We calculate an impact speed-dependent threshold velocity g(c) for coagulation to occur based on binary collision dynamics of viscoelastic Iranular particles including adhesive forces and determined by the masses, and the material of the colliding particles. Growth processes are immensely slowed down due to g(c) and the resulting restriction in phase space, and do furthermore depend on the ratio of threshold and thermal velocity of a considered particle ensemble. The Smoluchowski equation emerges from the general kinetic approach as a special case Y1 - 2004 SN - 0295-5075 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spahn, Frank A1 - Schmidt, Jürgen A1 - Albers, Nicole A1 - Hörning, Marcel A1 - Makuch, Martin A1 - Seiß, Martin A1 - Kempf, Sascha A1 - Srama, Ralf A1 - Dikarev, Valeri A1 - Helfert, Stefan A1 - Moragas-Klostermeyer, Georg A1 - Krivov, Alexander V. A1 - Sremcevic, Miodrag A1 - Tuzzolino, Anthony J. A1 - Economou, Thanasis A1 - Grün, Eberhard T1 - Cassini dust measurements at Enceladus and implications for the origin of the E ring Y1 - 2006 UR - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5766/1416.full U6 - https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121375 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Albers, Nicole A1 - Spahn, Frank T1 - The influence of particle adhesion on the stability of agglomerates in Saturn's rings N2 - In planetary rings, binary collisions and mutual gravity are the predominant particle interactions. Based on a viscoelastic contact model we implement the concept of static adhesion. We discuss the collision dynamics and obtain a threshold velocity for restitution or agglomeration to occur. The latter takes place within a range of a few cm s(-1) for icy grains at low temperatures. The stability of such two-body agglomerates bound by adhesion and gravity in a tidal environment is discussed and applied to the saturnian system. A maximal agglomerate size for a given orbit location is obtained. In this way we are able to resolve the borderline of the zone where agglomerates can exist as a function of the agglomerate size and thus gain an alternative to the classical Roche limit. An increasing ring grain size with distance to Saturn as observed by the VIMS-experiment on board the Cassini spacecraft can be found by our estimates and implications for the saturnian system will be addressed. Y1 - 2006 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00191035 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2005.10.011 SN - 0019-1035 ER -