The Scattered Disk as a Source of Halley-Type Comets

Details The Scattered Disk as a Source of Halley-Type Comets The Scattered Disk as a Source of Halley-Type Comets

Nov 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004dps....36.0806l&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #36, #08.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.1082

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We will discuss a new dynamical mechanism for producing Halley-type comets from the scattered disk of comets. Levison & Duncan (1997, Icarus 108, 18) and Duncan & Levison (1997, Science 276, 1670) showed that a significant number of objects leave the scattered disk by evolving to semi-major axes greater than 1000 AU. We find that once these objects reach semi-major axes on the order of 10,000 AU, a significant fraction immediately have their perihelia driven inward by the Galactic tides. Approximately 0.01% of the objects that reach 10,000 AU then evolve onto orbits similar to the observed Halley-like comets due to gravitational interactions with the giant planets. The orbital element distribution resulting from this process is statistically consistent with observations. Our model predicts a temporal variation in the influx of HTCs with a period of roughly 120 Myrs. At the peak there should be roughly 10 times as many HTCs as currently observed (i.e. there should be weak HTC showers).

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