Recent results in family identification

To select asteroid families, the D(a) distribution of asteroid sizes by their semimajor axes and the N(p) distribution of the number of asteroids by their albedo values for individual families were used. A statistically significant reduction in the mean albedo with increasing semimajor axis is observed for almost all correctly identified families that are not truncated by resonances. This points on an action of a specific nongravitational effect (NGE) in the asteroid belt, and results in the spatial separation of asteroids with different albedos.