On the origin of KBO spins

Details On the origin of KBO spins On the origin of KBO spins

Dec 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005dps....37.5618l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #37, #56.18; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 37, p.1571

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present a numerical study of the collisional evolution of the masses and spins of Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs). Our model follows one KBO at a time (the target), as it collides with the surrounding bodies. The collisional environment, described by the total mass, size and velocity distributions of KBOs, determines the total number, and the character of individual collisions. Changes in the target's spin rate and mass are calculated for each collision, as a function of several parameters describing individual objects and the environment. We find that the spins of KBOs do not depend strongly on their bulk properties. Furthermore, the observed spins of KBOs larger than ˜200 km cannot be explained by collisions, if the objects had no spin at the end of the primary growth phase. This suggests that the large KBOs must have attained their spin rates very early in their evolution. We investigate the possibility that the accretion process was not entirely isotropic, and contributed angular momentum to the growing KBOs. We find that a ˜10% asymmetry in the net angular momentum of accreted particles would explain the observations. However, if the accreted particles were comparable in size to the growing body, no anisotropy is required because the accretion of individual particles can produce significant spin changes. These two scenarios make different predictions about the distribution of KBO spin rates and spin axis orientations: (1) Anisotropic accretion favours low scatter in the spin rates; (2) Isotropic accretion of larger building blocks predicts a large scatter in KBO spin rates and random spin axis orientations. The existing data is insufficient to discern between the two possibilities.

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