Viscosity in Saturn's rings

Abstract

The technique of estimating the viscosity in Saturn's rings from the damping rate of waves observed to be propagating within the rings is discussed. The wavetrains of attempts using spiral density waves as a diagnostic suffer significant complications that compromise the interpretations. A method that considers the damping of spiral bending waves was used to deduce a kinematic viscosity of 260 (+150, -100) sqcm/sec for the middle of the A ring where bending waves are excited by the 5:3 vertical resonance with Mimas. This value implies upper limits on the particle velocity dispersion and local ring thickness of 0.4 cm/sec and 30 m, respectively.