A correct selection of asteroid families and confirmation of a nongravitational effect action

Abstract

The distribution of asteroid sizes by semimajor axes and the distribution of the number of asteroids by albedo values for separate families are used to selection the asteroid families more clearly. An analysis of the families identified by Masiero et al. (2013) was carried out with the use of the distributions of D(a) and N(p), there were defined correctly and incorrectly selected families. A decreasing of the mean albedo with semi-major axis increasing take place almost for all correctly selected families and which are not truncated by resonances. The decrease is statistically significant for the majority of these families. There is none family at a significant increase of albedo. This confirms our previous conclusion on existence of a non-gravitational effect in the asteroid belt which causes the spatial separation of asteroids with different albedos.