These animations show different views of a global simulation of a system similar to Saturn's F ring. The simulations include interparticle collisions, but not particle self-gravity. There are two perturbing moons that have separations from the rings, eccentricities, and masses similar to Prometheus and Pandora, but the exact orbits are not derived from observations. The ring material begins the simulation as a circular ring with Gaussian radial distribution 14 km across.
The animations show 20 orbits each with 10 frames per orbit and 0 being the beginning of the simulation. The Prometheus-like moon is interior to the ring and moves to the right relative to the ring material while the Pandora-like moon moves to the left significantly faster. In addition to showing the optical depth for the entire simulation, the animations show several other views of the data. There are small regions at from from -1.4 to -1.6 radians and from 1.4 to 1.6 radians. For these regions the optical depth is shown along with the guiding center optical depth and the eccentricity binned in guiding center space. There are also radial profiles taken at roughly -PI/2 and PI/2. Note that for the surface plots, the units on the axes represent the exact same lengths so the aspect ratio, even on the plots showing smaller regions, are far from 1:1.
The animations are in animated GIF format for maximum compatibility, but this makes them fairly large which is why they are broken into difference pieces. More pieces will be added as the simulation progresses.
| Orbits | AVI | GIF |
|---|---|---|
0-19 |
16 MB | 26 MB |
| 20-39 | 16 MB | 32 MB |
| 40-59 | 17 MB | 38 MB |
| 60-79 | 17 MB | 39 MB |
| 80-99 | 18 MB | 41 MB |
| 100-119 | 17 MB | 43 MB |
| 120-139 | 18 MB | 42 MB |
| 140-159 | 18 MB | 41 MB |
| 160-179 | 17 MB | 40 MB |
| 180-199 | 18 MB | 41 MB |
| 200-219 | 18 MB | 40 MB |
| 220-239 | 18 MB | 37 MB |
| 240-259 | 18 MB | 37 MB |
| 260-279 | 17 MB | |
| 0-279 | 200 MB |
The following animation is from another simulation with slightly different initial conditions set up to produce a perturbation in the ring similar to what occurs in the real system. Only a single mplayer AVI file is given for this simulation. Movie File
The exact details of these types of simulations are sensitively dependent on the simulation setup, particularly values like the synodic period. The integer m number of the nearest resonance is much less significant than where the ring is between resonances. That is because the fractional part of the m number determines what ring material will get the largest perturbation from the moon relative to the material that got that perturbation in the previous kick.
