Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Apr 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011dda....42.0906v&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #42, #9.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The Centaurs are a population of small bodies whose orbits cross those of the outer planets. They represent a dynamically short-lived transition population in-between the trans-Neptunian region and the Jupiter family short-period comets. Centaurs suffer many close encounters with the outer planets during their evolution from the trans-Neptunian region to their current orbits. Here we examine how these close encounters affect the orbital inclinations of hypothetical Centaurs as they evolve, in order to determine the extent to which the Centaurs' orbits retain memory of their original inclinations in the trans-Neptunian region. Using these results, we show how the inclination distribution of the Centaurs depends on the inclination distribution of their source population. In general, a low-inclination source population produces Centaurs with systematically larger mean inclinations, resulting in a more broadly peaked, moderately excited inclination distribution. For a source population with higher initial inclinations, the shape of the distribution is somewhat more preserved in the Centaurs, but the peak inclination of the distribution is lowered. We discuss how the initial inclinations of Centaurs are correlated with average inclination and dynamical lifetime in the Centaur region. We also explore the full range of inclinations that can be produced by close encounters to determine the efficiency of producing extremely high inclination and retrograde Centaurs.
Malhotra Renu
Volk Kathryn
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