Orbital dynamics of the Uranian moon Mab

The Uranian moon Mab, located in Uranus’ outer ring system, has been observed to be undergoing significant changes in its orbit about Uranus. These changes are not attributable to gravity flattening effects or meanmotion resonances, which suffice to elucidate the motion of all other known Uranian moons. Mab was discovered in 2006 [1], along with the dusty μ-ring through analysis of images obtained using the High Resolution Channel (HRC) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The HST images catalogue the behavior of Mab during the period 2003 to 2007. In this paper, we explore the influence of the presence of other small moonlets in the neighborhood of Mab. In particular, we examine the dynamics of non-collisional orbital interactions between Mab and a cloud of thus far undetected moonlets.