From an@ras.org.uk Wed Jul 16 10:38:12 2008 Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:38:08 -0400 (EDT) From: an@ras.org.uk To: mira@sirrah.troja.mff.cuni.cz Subject: MNRAS: MN-08-1041-MJ Dear Dr Broz I attach the reviewer's comments on your manuscript entitled "Asteroid families in the first order resonances with Jupiter", ref. MN-08-1041-MJ, which you submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The reviewer is Rodney Gomes. Moderate revision of your manuscript is requested before it is reconsidered for publication. You should submit your revised version, together with your response to the reviewer's comments via the Monthly Notices Manuscript Central site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mnras . Enter your Author Centre, where you will find your manuscript title listed under "Manuscripts with Decisions." Under "Actions," click on "Create a Revision." Your manuscript reference will be appended to denote a revision. IMPORTANT: do not submit your revised manuscript as a new paper! 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If you do not submit your revision within six months, we may consider it withdrawn and request it be resubmitted as a new submission. Please note that, due to the tight schedule, any post-acceptance changes notified after the paper has gone into production (i.e. the day after the acceptance email is sent) cannot be incorporated into the paper before it is typeset. Such changes will therefore need to be made as part of the proof corrections. To avoid excessive proof corrections and the delay that these can cause, you are strongly encouraged to ensure that each version of your paper submitted to MNRAS is completely ready for publication! I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Best wishes, Bella Bella Nicholls (Miss) Editorial Assistant "Monthly Notices" Royal Astronomical Society email: an@ras.org.uk Tel: (+44) (0)207 734 3307 #214 Fax: (+44) (0)207 287 2167 Reviewer's Comments: Referee Report on the paper 'Asteroids Families in the First Order Resonances with Jupiter' by M. Broz and D. Vokrouhlický. The authors approach three specific questions associated with asteroids in first order mean motion resonance with Jupiter (the J2/1 Hecuba gap, the J3/2 Hilda's group and the J4/3 Thule group). The first question concerns the determination of new members for each of the resonant group, through a numerical/statistical analysis. In particular, they determine two new members for the Thule group, which, with Thule itself, form a three-members group now. The question of the determination of possible collisional families among the resonant groups is most interesting. The authors conclude with good confidence that that are two collisional families in the Hilda group, the Schubart family and the Hilda collisional family. They also estimate their age, being Schubart family relatively young whereas the Hilda family probably comes from the Late Heavy Bombardment about 3.8 billion years ago. Lastly, the authors study the asteroidal resonant groups under the point of view of their stability vis-ŕ-vis the primordial planetary migration that must have occurred in the first hundred million years after Solar System formation. Last of all, they also evaluate to which size of bodies the Yarkovsky effect could have depleted the Jupiter resonant regions. I think the paper is quite interesting and gives an important contribution to the understanding of the present orbital configuration of the resonant groups of asteroids as well as contributes to our knowledge of new collisional families within the specific resonant asteroid belt. I also think the contribution for the understanding of how planetary migration could have affected the stability or even survival of the asteroidal resonant group is good, however my main comments concern this point. It seems to me that section 4.1 is a little outside the global aim of the paper. Moreover it is just barely developed. Figure 23, which summarizes the results of that section, is not able to answer the question on whether the resonant groups could survive or not the primordial planetary migration. It is true that Fig. 27 is much more conclusive in this respect, however it is placed in the conclusions section, as a "work still being done". My suggestion is that this information might be displaced into section 4.1. Another suggestion is that the theme on resonant asteroids stability during planetary migration could be removed from the paper and be part of a more complete paper on this subject, which seems that the authors are already doing. I think the increment of new resonant asteroids to the present inventory and the establishment of collisional families in the resonant groups are already quite interesting results to turn the paper complete enough. A scientific remark: the Yarkovsky drift in eccentricity due to the trapping in the J3/2 resonance is systematic and not chaotic as commented by the authors. In this case, one could not associate smaller objects with a larger dispersion and this could not be checked in the observed population? Other points: - in Eq (7), isn't there also a condition on \Omega - \Omega' ? - I think there needs some English improvement in the middle of the paragraph just before Section 2.1, around the text: "...we modify their and asteroids', initial conditions ...". - In the second paragraph of Section 2.2: it is hard to see the outer separatrix that the escapees should be closer in Fig. 6 (there is no separatrix either in Fig. 5). - The panels in Figs. 16-18 that associates common J3/2 objects to a dot is hard to see either. In fact we see many dots inside the panel, belonging to the Figure itself. Maybe the dots should be removed from the panels or the panel put outside the figure... - it is a little hard to read Figure 23 (also 24 and 25). Thicker and thinner lines get mixed together and one looses their path. Would different types of lines improve? My final comment is that the paper is a nice contribution to our understanding of the resonant asteroidal group and collisional families within the groups and for this reason I recommend its publication in the MNRAS. My main comments about the stability under migration must be considered as a suggestion. I am not contrary to the publication of section 4.1 as it is, but I encourage the authors to at least improve it with added results from the conclusions section. Since my review does not include anything too restrictive, I do not need to see the paper again although I'm ready to see it if the authors so wish.