Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.3802n&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #38.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.464
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
3
Scientific paper
About 30% of 100-km low-inclination objects in the classical Kuiper Belt (KB) are binaries with the comparable mass and wide separation of components [1]. The currently preferred model for their formation is the gravitational capture during the coagulation growth of bodies in the early KB. [2]. This model requires strong dynamical friction from a massive population of small bodies that must keep the random velocities of the large objects below or near their Hill speeds. Whether or not such conditions existed in the early KB is unclear. For example, recent studies suggest that large, >100-km objects can rapidly form in protoplanetary disks by the gravitational collapse in locally overdense regions in the midplane of a turbulent gas disk [3]. These results are consistent with the constraints derived from the asteroid belt [4] and may also help to explain formation of the outer planets' cores [5]. If the KB objects formed by the same mechanism, the coagulation model used by [2] does not apply. Instead, the KB binaries would have to form very early on, probably when gas was still around. Here we examine various possibilities for KB binary formation in the gaseous disk, including a new idea that binaries formed directly during the gravitational collapse in [3] when the excess of angular momentum prevented the agglomeration of all available mass into solitary objects. Very early formation of the KB binaries is required for the capture of Triton in the framework of [6].
This work was supported by NSF.
References:
[1] Noll et al. 2008, Icarus, 194, 758.
[2] Goldreich et al. 2002, Nature, 420, 643.
[3] Johansen et al. 2007, Nature, 448, 1022,
[4] Morbidelli et al. 2008, Nature, submitted.
[5] Lyra et al. 2008, A&A, submitted.
[6] Agnor, Hamilton 2006, Nature, 441, 192
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