Meteor complex of asteroid 3200 Phaethon: Its features derived from theory and updated meteor data bases

Abstract

We model a variety of meteoroid streams originating from asteroid 3200 Phaethon and follow their dynamical evolution. The modelling is performed for several past perihelion passages of the parent body. The particles in the models are perturbed (i) only by the gravity of planets, and (ii) both by gravity and by the Poynting-Robertson effect. We confirm that the meteoroid complex of Phaethon consists of two filaments: Geminids and Daytime Sextantids. Themost of the Geminids are found to be younger than about 1000 years old and their physical properties have to correspond to values of the parameter β (giving the strength of the Poynting-Robertson drag) between ~0.005 and ~0.01, the age of the Daytime Sextantids has to significantly exceed 10 millennia and β ranges from ~0.0005 to ~0.001. The discrepancy between the ages and β-values of particles released from the same source can be explained by the dynamical argument that old Sextantids with a relatively small β cannot occur in the Geminid filament and that young Geminids cannot occur in the Sextantid filament.