Lidov-Kozai mechanism in Hildas and Jupiter trojans (Q6573409)

Secular perturbations of the orbital elements of asteroids describe their long-term behavior and may be separated into two types, namely, classical and Lidov-Kozai perturbations (LKM). The classical perturbations are dominant in the case of small eccentricities and inclinations, while the LKM becomes dominant for large values of eccentricities and inclinations. As both types of the secular perturbations act simultaneously, it is quite difficult to exclude the classical perturbations and to study the LKM. In this paper, two populations of asteroids, namely, the Hilda group and Trojans are considered which move in 3:2 and 1:1 resonances with Jupiter. As a result, their inclinations can be very large, up to 33\degree~and application of an analytic and semi-analytic theory is very difficult within a realistic model. The author uses a simplified dynamical model based on the restricted three-body problem and takes into account only perturbations from Jupiter moving in a fixed elliptical orbit. Applying a long-period numerical integration of the equations of motion of asteroids and excluding the classical secular perturbations from osculating elements at every print step, the author finally obtained the plots of the orbital inclinations and eccentricities as functions of the perihelion argument. The obtained results are quite interesting and correspond to the results of Kozai computed by a semi-analytical method.