BREAKDOWN OF LIBRATIONAL INVARIANT SURFACES

Abstract

A numerical investigation of the stability of invariant librational tori is presented. The method has been developed for a model describing the spin-orbit coupling in Celestial Mechanics. Periodic orbits approaching the librational torus are computed by means of Newton's method. According to Greene's criterion, their stability is strictly related to the survival of invariant tori. We consider librational tori around the main spin-orbit resonances (1:1, 3:2). Their existence provides the stability of the resonances, due to the confinement properties in the three-dimensional phase space associated to our model. The results are consistent with the actual observations of the eccentricity and of the oblateness parameter. A different behavior of the Moon and Mercury around the main resonances is evidenced, providing interesting suggestions about the different probabilities of capture in a resonance.