Rotational Properties of the Maria Asteroid Family

We carried out photometric observations of Maria family asteroids during 134 nights spanning from July 2008 to May 2013, and derived synodic rotational periods for 51 objects including obtained periods of 34 asteroids for the first time. In this study, we found that there is a significant excess of fast and slow rotators. The one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test confirms that the spin rate distribution is not consistent with the Maxwellian at a 92% confidence level. From the correlations between rotational period, amplitude of lightcurve, and size, we conclude that rotational properties of Maria family have been changed considerably by the non-gravitational force such as the Yarkovsky and the YORP effect. Using the lightcurve inversion method, we successfully determined the pole orientation for the 13 Maria members, and found the excess of prograde objects versus retrograde with a ratio ($N_p/N_r$) of 3. This implies that retrograde rotators could have been ejected by the 3:1 resonance to the inner Solar System since the generation of Maria family. We estimate that approximately 37 - 75 kilometer-sized Maria asteroids have entered to near-Earth space every 100 Myr.