Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• BATYGIN, Konstantin
• BROWN, Michael E
• FRASER, Wesley C

Titel

RETENTION OF A PRIMORDIAL COLD CLASSICAL KUIPER BELT IN AN INSTABILITY-DRIVEN MODEL OF SOLAR SYSTEM FORMATION

Ist Teil von

• The Astrophysical journal, 2011-09, Vol.738 (1), p.jQuery1323904120942='48'-jQuery1323904120942='48'

Ort / Verlag

Bristol: IOP

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The cold classical population of the Kuiper Belt exhibits a wide variety of unique physical characteristics, which collectively suggest that its dynamical coherence has been maintained throughout the solar system's lifetime. Simultaneously, the retention of the cold population's relatively unexcited orbital state has remained a mystery, especially in the context of a solar system formation model, that is driven by a transient period of instability, where Neptune is temporarily eccentric. Here, we show that the cold belt can survive the instability, and its dynamical structure can be reproduced. We develop a simple analytical model for secular excitation of cold Kuiper Belt objects and show that comparatively fast apsidal precession and nodal recession of Neptune, during the eccentric phase, are essential for preservation of an unexcited state in the cold classical region. Subsequently, we confirm our results with self-consistent N-body simulations. We further show that contamination of the hot classical and scattered populations by objects of similar nature to that of cold classicals has been instrumental in shaping the vast physical diversity inherent to the Kuiper Belt.