Krivov, A.V. and D.P. Hamilton.
Martian Dust Belts: Waiting for Discovery.
Icarus 128, 335-353.
In this paper, we present modeling results of the presumed dust
belts of Mars. We combine recently obtained theoretical results in
dynamics of circumplanetary dust grains with up-to-date impact
models and use a new numerical code to construct a
three-dimensional, time-dependent, and size-dependent distribution
of dust material. Our modeling is performed in two consecutive
stages. First, for each grain size, we construct a relative spatial
density distribution (\ie a density distribution normalized to an
arbitrary factor), which depends almost entirely on dust dynamics.
We arrive at an extended set of data tables which quantitatively
describe the asymmetric and season-dependent structure formed by
different-sized grains. This step is done quite accurately using
sophisticated dynamical models. Next, we model the dust production
and loss rates in two conceivable formation scenarios to estimate
absolute spatial dust densities. These results are uncertain by one
or two orders of magnitude because the hypervelocity impact
process is poorly characterized. We use the absolute spatial
densities to estimate the normal and edge-on optical depths of the
Phobos and Deimos tori and obtain values from $10^{-8}$ to $10^{-5}$.
Spacecraft data are required to substantially reduce these
uncertainties.
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