Modeling Titan's Internal Structure

Librational response of a deformed 3-layer Titan perturbed by non-keplerian orbit and atmospheric couplings

Authors:

Richard et al

Abstract:

The analyses of Titan's gravity field obtained by Cassini space mission suggest the presence of an internal ocean beneath its icy surface. The characterization of the geophysical parameters of the icy shell and the ocean is important to constrain the evolution models of Titan. The knowledge of the librations, that are periodic oscillations around a uniform rotational motion, can bring piece of information on the interior parameters. The objective of this paper is to study the librational response in longitude from an analytical approach for Titan composed of a deep atmosphere, an elastic icy shell, an internal ocean, and an elastic rocky core perturbed by the gravitational interactions with Saturn. We start from the librational equations developed for a rigid satellite in synchronous spin-orbit resonance. We introduce explicitly the atmospheric torque acting on the surface computed from the Titan IPSL GCM (Institut Pierre Simon Laplace General Circulation Model) and the periodic deformations of elastic solid layers due to the tides. We investigate the librational response for various interior models in order to compare and to identify the influence of the geophysical parameters and the impact of the elasticity. The main librations arise at two well-separated forcing frequency ranges: low forcing frequencies dominated by the Saturnian annual and semi-annual frequencies, and a high forcing frequency regime dominated by Titan's orbital frequency around Saturn. We find that internal structure models including an internal ocean with elastic solid layers lead to the same order of libration amplitude than the oceanless models, which makes more challenging to differentiate them by the interpretation of librational motion.