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

Oct 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006icar..184..619l&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 184, Issue 2, p. 619-633.

Physics

20

Scientific paper

We investigate a new dynamical mechanism for producing Halley-type comets from the scattered disk of comets. Levison and Duncan [Levison, H., Duncan, M., 1997. Icarus 127, 13 32] and Duncan and Levison [Duncan, M., Levison, H., 1997. Science 276, 1670 1672] 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 AU, a significant fraction immediately have their perihelia driven inward by the galactic tides. Approximately 0.01% of the objects that reach 10 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. We discuss the implications of this model for the number of objects in the scattered disk in the text. The model predicts a temporal variation in the influx of HTCs with a period of ˜118 Myr. At the peak, the model predicts that there should be roughly 10 times as many HTCs as currently observed (i.e., there should be weak HTC showers). However, the model may inflate the importance of these showers because it does not include the effects of passing stars and giant molecular clouds.

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