Tidal locking

If the tidal bulges on a body (green) are misaligned with the major axis (red), the tidal forces (blue) exert a net torque on that body that twists the body toward the direction of realignment

Consider a pair of co-orbiting objects, A and B. The change in rotation rate necessary to tidally lock body B to the larger body A is caused by the torque applied by A's gravity on bulges it has induced on B by tidal forces.[5]

The gravitational force from object A upon B will vary with distance, being greatest at the nearest surface to A and least at the most distant. This creates a gravitational gradient across object B that will distort its equilibrium shape slightly. The body of object B will become elongated along the axis oriented toward A, and conversely, slightly reduced in dimension in directions orthogonal to this axis. The elongated distortions are known as tidal bulges. (For the solid Earth, these bulges can reach displacements of up to around 0.4 metres (1.3 ft).[6]) When B is not yet tidally locked, the bulges travel over its surface due to orbital motions, with one of the two "high" tidal bulges traveling close to the point where body A is overhead. For large astronomical bodies that are nearly spherical due to self-gravitation, the tidal distortion produces a slightly prolate spheroid, i.e. an axially symmetric ellipsoid that is elongated along its major axis. Smaller bodies also experience distortion, but this distortion is less regular.

The material of B exerts resistance to this periodic reshaping caused by the tidal force. In effect, some time is required to reshape B to the gravitational equilibrium shape, by which time the forming bulges have already been carried some distance away from the A–B axis by B's rotation. Seen from a vantage point in space, the points of maximum bulge extension are displaced from the axis oriented toward A. If B's rotation period is shorter than its orbital period, the bulges are carried forward of the axis oriented toward A in the direction of rotation, whereas if B's rotation period is longer, the bulges instead lag behind.

Because the bulges are now displaced from the A–B axis, A's gravitational pull on the mass in them exerts a torque on B. The torque on the A-facing bulge acts to bring B's rotation in line with its orbital period, whereas the "back" bulge, which faces away from A, acts in the opposite sense. However, the bulge on the A-facing side is closer to A than the back bulge by a distance of approximately B's diameter, and so experiences a slightly stronger gravitational force and torque. The net resulting torque from both bulges, then, is always in the direction that acts to synchronize B's rotation with its orbital period, leading eventually to tidal locking.

Orbital changes

If rotational frequency is larger than orbital frequency, a small torque counteracting the rotation arises, eventually locking the frequencies (situation depicted in green)

The angular momentum of the whole A–B system is conserved in this process, so that when B slows down and loses rotational angular momentum, its orbital angular momentum is boosted by a similar amount (there are also some smaller effects on A's rotation). This results in a raising of B's orbit about A in tandem with its rotational slowdown. For the other case where B starts off rotating too slowly, tidal locking both speeds up its rotation, and lowers its orbit.

An estimate of the time for a body to become tidally locked can be obtained using the following formula:[25]

${\displaystyle t_{\text{lock}}\approx {\frac {\omega a^{6}IQ}{3Gm_{p}^{2}k_{2}R^{5}}}}$

where

• ${\displaystyle \omega \,}$ is the initial spin rate expressed in radians per second,
• ${\displaystyle a\,}$ is the semi-major axis of the motion of the satellite around the planet (given by the average of the periapsis and apoapsis distances),
• ${\displaystyle I\,}$ ${\displaystyle \approx 0.4\;m_{s}R^{2}}$ is the moment of inertia of the satellite, where ${\displaystyle m_{s}\,}$ is the mass of the satellite and ${\displaystyle R\,}$ is the mean radius of the satellite,
• ${\displaystyle Q\,}$ is the dissipation function of the satellite,
• ${\displaystyle G\,}$ is the gravitational constant,
• ${\displaystyle m_{p}\,}$ is the mass of the planet, and
• ${\displaystyle k_{2}\,}$ is the tidal Love number of the satellite.

${\displaystyle Q}$ and ${\displaystyle k_{2}}$ are generally very poorly known except for the Moon, which has ${\displaystyle k_{2}/Q=0.0011}$. For a really rough estimate it is common to take ${\displaystyle Q\approx 100}$ (perhaps conservatively, giving overestimated locking times), and

${\displaystyle k_{2}\approx {\frac {1.5}{1+{\frac {19\mu }{2\rho gR}}}},}$

where

• ${\displaystyle \rho \,}$ is the density of the satellite
• ${\displaystyle g\approx Gm_{s}/R^{2}}$ is the surface gravity of the satellite
• ${\displaystyle \mu \,}$ is the rigidity of the satellite. This can be roughly taken as 3×10¹⁰ N·m⁻² for rocky objects and 4×10⁹ N·m⁻² for icy ones.

Even knowing the size and density of the satellite leaves many parameters that must be estimated (especially ω, Q, and μ), so that any calculated locking times obtained are expected to be inaccurate, even to factors of ten. Further, during the tidal locking phase the semi-major axis ${\displaystyle a}$ may have been significantly different from that observed nowadays due to subsequent tidal acceleration, and the locking time is extremely sensitive to this value.

Because the uncertainty is so high, the above formulas can be simplified to give a somewhat less cumbersome one. By assuming that the satellite is spherical, ${\displaystyle k_{2}\ll 1\,,Q=100}$, and it is sensible to guess one revolution every 12 hours in the initial non-locked state (most asteroids have rotational periods between about 2 hours and about 2 days)

${\displaystyle t_{\text{lock}}\approx 6\ {\frac {a^{6}R\mu }{m_{s}m_{p}^{2}}}\times 10^{10}\ {\text{years}},}$

with masses in kilograms, distances in meters, and ${\displaystyle \mu }$ in newtons per meter squared; ${\displaystyle \mu }$ can be roughly taken as 3×10¹⁰ N·m⁻² for rocky objects and 4×10⁹ N·m⁻² for icy ones.

There is an extremely strong dependence on semi-major axis ${\displaystyle a}$.

For the locking of a primary body to its satellite as in the case of Pluto, the satellite and primary body parameters can be swapped.

One conclusion is that, other things being equal (such as ${\displaystyle Q}$ and ${\displaystyle \mu }$), a large moon will lock faster than a smaller moon at the same orbital distance from the planet because ${\displaystyle m_{s}\,}$ grows as the cube of the satellite radius ${\displaystyle R}$. A possible example of this is in the Saturn system, where Hyperion is not tidally locked, whereas the larger Iapetus, which orbits at a greater distance, is. However, this is not clear cut because Hyperion also experiences strong driving from the nearby Titan, which forces its rotation to be chaotic.

The above formulae for the timescale of locking may be off by orders of magnitude, because they ignore the frequency dependence of ${\displaystyle k_{2}/Q}$. More importantly, they may be inapplicable to viscous binaries (double stars, or double asteroids that are rubble), because the spin–orbit dynamics of such bodies is defined mainly by their viscosity, not rigidity.[26]

• Conservation of Angular Momentum
• Gravity-gradient stabilization – a method used to stabilize some artificial satellites
• Orbital resonance
• Planetary habitability
• Roche limit
• Synchronous orbit
• Tidal acceleration