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

International audienceThe 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 a 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. At low forcing frequency, the librational response is dominated by the Saturnian gravitational torque and the atmospheric torque has a small effect. In addition, the libration amplitude in that case is almost equal to the magnitude of the perturbation. The modulation of the gravitational torque amplitude at the orbital frequency with periodic deformation induces long-period terms in the librational response which contain information on the internal structure. At high forcing frequency the libration depends on the inertia of the layers and the elasticity can strongly reduce its amplitude at orbital frequency. For example, the amplitude of diurnal libration for oceanic models goes from about 320-390 m if the icy shell is purely rigid to 60-85 m when the elasticity is included, i.e. a reduction of about 80%. For models without ocean, diurnal libration goes from 52 m in a rigid case to 50 m for an elastic case, a very low reduction due to the weak deformation of an entirely solid satellite compared to the deformation of a thin icy shell. Oceanic models with elastic solid layers have the same order of libration amplitude than the oceanless models, which makes more challenging to differentiate them by the interpretation of librational motion. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd