Asymptotic behavior of an elastic satellite with internal friction
Abstract
We study the dynamics of an elastic body whose shape and position evolve due to the gravitational forces exerted by a pointlike planet. The main result is that, if all the deformations of the satellite dissipate some energy, then under a suitable nondegeneracy condition there are only three possible outcomes for the dynamics: (i) the orbit of the satellite is unbounded, (ii) the satellite falls on the planet, (iii) the satellite is captured in synchronous resonance i.e. its orbit is asymptotic to a motion in which the barycenter moves on a circular orbit, and the satellite moves rigidly, always showing the same face to the planet. The result is obtained by making use of LaSalle's invariance principle and by a careful kinematic analysis showing that energy stops dissipating only on synchronous orbits. We also use in quite an extensive way the fact that conservative elastodynamics is a Hamiltonian system invariant under the action of the rotation group.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1212.0816,
title = {Asymptotic behavior of an elastic satellite with internal friction},
author = {Emanuele Haus and Dario Bambusi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.0816},
year = {2015}
}