Resonant Channels to the Distant Kuiper Belt

Details Resonant Channels to the Distant Kuiper Belt Resonant Channels to the Distant Kuiper Belt

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.6203v&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #62.03

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present the results of numerical studies of the orbits of the eight known Kuiper belt objects with semi-major axes above 50 AU and perihelia above 45 AU. These objects have been described as 'extended scattered' or 'detached' objects. Several possible mechanisms have been proposed to explain their origin: gravitational perturbations from passing stars early in solar system history, interaction with a massive KBO, planetary migration, or a combination of mean motion and secular resonances with the giant planets. The last mechanism is perhaps the simplest and minimalist, because it does not rely on models with free parameters (migration) or on chance events (mutual encounters, passing stars), but rather can act under the current well-determined architecture of the solar system. Our numerical study finds that five of the eight known objects are likely to be in mean motion resonances with Neptune, and might have been transported to their current orbits simply by means of weak chaos associated with the secular Kozai mechanism in combination with a mean motion resonance. Assuming a source only in the known classical and scattered disk components of the Kuiper belt, this weak chaos mechanism is quite inefficient and can account for only a sparse population of detached objects.

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