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The small ($\le$ 135 km mean radius) saturnian satellites are closely relatedto the rings and together they constitute a complex dynamical system whereformation and destruction mechanisms compete against each other. We model thecratering process by Centaur objects on the small saturnian satellites, andcompare our results with the observational crater counts obtained from theVoyager and Cassini missions. Using a theoretical model previously developed wecalculate the crater production on these satellites considering two slopes ofthe size-frequency distribution (SFD) for the smaller objects of the Centaurpopulation and compare our results with the available observations. Inaddition, we consider the case of catastrophic collisions between thesesatellites and Centaur objects and calculate the age of formation of thosesatellites that suffer one or more disruptions. In general we find that theobserved crater distributions are best modeled by the crater size distributioncorresponding to the $s_2 = 3.5$ index of the SFD of impactors with diameterssmaller than 60 km. However, for crater diameters $D \lesssim 3-8$ km (whichcorrespond to impactor diameters $d \sim 0.04 - 0.15$ km), the observeddistributions become flatter and deviate from our results, which may evidenceprocesses of erosion and/or crater saturation at small crater sizes or apossible break in the SFD of impactors at $d \sim 0.04 - 0.15$ km to a muchshallower differential slope of $\sim -1.5$. Our results suggest that Pan,Daphnis, Atlas, Aegaeon, Methone, Anthe, Pallene, Calypso and Polydeucessuffered one or more catastrophic collisions over the age of the Solar System,the younger being associated to arcs with ages of $\sim10^8$ years. We havealso calculated the satellites' surface ages, which indicate ongoingresurfacing processes.

Cratering and age of the small Saturnian satellites