18/mai/18 -The ring of Haumea from the point of view of the Perturbation Maps. (Diogo Merguizo Sanchez, INPE)

In this work the ring of Haumea is investigated from the point of view of the Perturbation Maps. These maps show the behavior and impact of perturbations acting over a particle around Haumea. The information coming from the map depends on the type the of integral of the disturbing acceleration used to build it. We used types II and IV, which provides information about how the perturbations affects the energy of the particle and how much the orbit of the particle deviates from a Keplerian orbit, respectively. We focused our numerical simulations at the region between 2,220 km and 2,500 km from the center of Haumea, that is the region where the ring was observed. The perturbation maps showed that the particles of the ring are actually constrained between 2,276 km and 2,393 km. There are potentially unstable regions inside the ring, which implies that possibly there is a system of rings around Haumea, not a single continuous one.