Secular perturbations of resonant asteroids

Secular perturbations of asteroids are derived for mean motion resonance cases under the assumptions that the disturbing planets are moving along circular orbits on the same plane and that critical arguments are fixed at stable equilibrium points. Under these assumptions the equations of motion are reduced to those of one degree of freedom with the energy integral. Then equi-energycurves on (2g-X) plane (g and X being, respectively, the argument of perihelion and (1–e²)^1/2) are derived for given values of the two constant parameters, the semi-major axis and =(1–e²)^1/2 cos i, and the variations of the eccentricity and the inclination as functions of the argument of perihelion are graphically estimated. In fact this method is applied to numbered asteroids with commensurable mean motions to estimate the ranges of the variations of orbital elements.The same method is also applied to the Pluto-Neptune system and the results are found to agree with those of numerical integrations and show that the argument of perihelion of Pluto librates around 90°.