Asteroid pairs: Survey of the inner main belt

Abstract

An asteroid pair forms when an asteroid splits into two unbound fragments because of collision, rotational fission, or binary system decay. The two components of the asteroid pair share similar physical properties and their orbits converge when integrated into the past. Currently, 268 asteroid pairs are known, and new pairs are discovered alongside the continuous discovery of new asteroids. We conducted a survey in the inner asteroid belt to find new asteroid pairs, estimated their age, and classified their physical properties. As presently no M-type asteroid pairs are known, we also conducted a specialized survey of them. We preselected asteroid pair candidates based on their distances in the five-dimensional space of osculating orbital elements. We created multiple clones within the uncertainties of their orbital elements and conducted their backtrack integration into the past. We searched for convergence of their clones at close spatial points with small relative velocities, the distribution of which determines the pair formation age. We find 40 new asteroid pairs, thus increasing the total number of known pairs by 15. One of the newly discovered pairs, 469759 - 2016 QZ123, with an age of $2.6_ $ kyr is now the third-youngest known asteroid pair. We studied the influence of the mutual gravitation of pair components on the process of their evolution and successfully observed the gravitational catching of the two pair members in the past. As a byproduct of pair search, we find eight asteroids connected in a cluster with an age of $76_ $ kyr that belongs to the Phocaea family and incorporates one previously known asteroid pair. We confirm the convergence of ten asteroid pairs discovered in our previous research and improve their age estimates. We observed a deficiency of M-type asteroid pairs, and therefore conducted a dedicated search for M-type pairs, but found none.