ON THE FRACTAL DIMENSION OF THE FAMILIES OF THE ASTEROIDS

We investigate the fractal dimension of the size distribution of some of the most important asteroid families. This can give some informatio n on the processes of fragmentation, since families are thought to be the outcomes of a number of collisional disruptions of asteroidal bodi es. On the basis of the observed cumulative size distributions, and ta king into account the minimum diameter of observational completeness i n the different cases, we perform a nonlinear fit in order to find the fractal dimension of the size distribution.