Abstract
We use a damped mass-spring model within an N-body code, to simulate the
tidal evolution of the spin and orbit of a viscoelastic spherical body moving
around a point-mass perturber. The damped spring-mass model represents a
Kelvin-Voigt viscoelastic solid. We derive the tidal quality function (the
dynamical Love number \$\,k\_2\,\$ divided by the tidal quality factor \$\,Q\,\$)
from the numerically computed tidal drift of the semimajor axis of the binary.
The obtained shape of \$\,k\_2/Q\,\$, as a function of the principal tidal
frequency, reproduces the typical kink shape predicted by Efroimsky (2012a;
CeMDA 112\$\,:\,\$283) for the tidal response of near-spherical homogeneous
viscoelastic rotators. Our model demonstrates that we can directly simulate the
tidal evolution of viscoelastic objects. This opens the possibility for
investigating more complex situations, since the employed spring-mass N-body
model can be generalised to inhomogeneous and/or non-spherical bodies.
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