Thermal Radiation Pressure Force on Atmosphereless Bodies

Thermal fracture and cracking near the perihelion are found to be a possible mechanism to produce the dust trail of the near-Earth asteroid, (3200) Phaethon (Jewitt and Li, 2013, ApJ 771, L36). It is, however, not well understood how the debris particles were escalated from the regolith against the asteroid's gravity. Thus, the scenario that these debris particles are responsible for the detected activities (Li and Jewitt, 2013, ApJ, 145, 154), is not complete yet. Here, we hypothesize that the thermal radiation pressure around the perihelion passage would exert substantial force outwards from the regolith on dust grains, and they can be lifted up and contributes the dust tail formation with further help of solar radiation pressure. Our modeling indicates that particles with sizes of roughly ~1-10 micron can be ejected from Phaethon by the mechanism, while a detailed model of gravitational field is required for accurate estimation of the particle size range. Our idea is not necessarily limited to Phaethon case, but is applicable to any atmosphereless bodies.