A Unified Universal Criterion for Tidal-Rotational-Solar Disruption of Bodies in Gravitational Fields: From Asteroids to Gas Giant Rings and Neutron Star Mergers

Author(s)

Abstract
A universal analytical criterion for gravitational disruption of any cohesive body – satellite, ring particle, asteroid, or neutron star – is presented. The criterion accounts for tidal forces from the central body (planet, star, black hole), centrifugal forces from the body's own rotation, and differential tidal effects from a third body (e.g., the Sun). In the absence of rotation and a third body, the classical Roche radius [1] is recovered as a special case. For rapidly rotating bodies of low density, the critical disruption distance can be several times larger than the classical limit. The three-body extension shows that for small ring particles with radius rs ∼1 m, the gravitational field of the third body creates additional axial loading, which explains the outer boundaries of gas giant rings. The criterion is applied to comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 (SL9) around Jupiter [2], the rings and moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, millisecond pulsars (PSR J1748–2446ad) [3], the neutron star merger GW170817 [4,5], and the production of heavy elements via the r-process in kilonovae [6]. For gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), the criterion predicts an outer ring boundary determined by the combination of tidal forces and the third body, rather than by the classical Roche radius, as well as instability zones for small, rapidly rotating satellites near the L2 point. It also introduces a maximum size limit for stable satellites as a function of their rotation.

Keywords
tidal rotational and gravitational tearing, asteroids, planets, comets, sun, neutron stars

Cite this paper
Nasko Elektronov, A Unified Universal Criterion for Tidal-Rotational-Solar Disruption of Bodies in Gravitational Fields: From Asteroids to Gas Giant Rings and Neutron Star Mergers , SCIREA Journal of Physics. Volume 11, Issue 4, August 2026 | PP. 192-205. 10.54647/physics140728

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