Evidence for an Extended Scattered Disk

By B. Gladman, M. Holman, T. Grav, J. Kavelaars, P. Nicholson, K. Aksnes, Jean-Marc Petit. 2001

160 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract By telescopic tracking, we have established that the transneptunian object (TNO) 2000 CR 105 has a semimajor axis of 220±1 AU and perihelion distance of 44.14±0.02 AU, beyond the domain which has heretofore been associated with the “scattered disk” of Kuiper Belt objects interacting via gravitational encounters with Neptune. We have also firmly established that the TNO 1995 TL 8 has a high perihelion (of 40.08±0.02 AU). These objects, and two other recent discoveries which appear to have perihelia outside 40 AU, have probably been placed on these orbits by a gravitational interaction which is not strong gravitational scattering off of any of the giant planets on their current orbits. Their existence may thus have profound cosmogonic implications for our understanding of the formation of the outer Solar System. We discuss some viable scenarios which could have produced these objects, including long-term diffusive chaos and scattering off of other massive bodies in the outer Solar System. This discovery implies that there must be a large population of TNOs in an “extended scattered disk” with perihelia above the previously suggested 38 AU boundary. The total population is difficult to estimate due to the ease with which such objects would have been lost. This illustrates the great value of frequent and well time-sampled recovery observations of trans-neptunian objects within their discovery opposition.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/18b26c7acb3e05bcf9e36e07c8972648a514a842

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. Morbidelli
2. D. Nesvorný
3. Harold Levison
4. R. Gomes
5. R. Malhotra
6. R. Brasser
7. Fred C. Adams
8. M. Brown

Citations in the corpus

• Discovery of a Candidate Inner Oort Cloud Planetoid (2004, background): “(Gladman et al. 2002), though more complicated interactions including migration can occasionally raise perihelia as high as ∼50AU (Gomes, 2004), sufficient to explain all of the known Kuiper belt objects.”
• The Birth Environment of the Solar System (2010, background): “The discovery of an extended scattered disk in the Solar System (Gladman et al. 2002), including the trans-Neptunian object Sedna (Brown et al. 2004), could represent additional evidence for scattering interactions between our Solar System and passing stars.”
• Embedded star clusters and the formation of the Oort Cloud (2006, methodology): “The ESD is thought to consist of objects with q > 38 AU (Gladman et al., 2002) which are thus beyond the gravitational influence of Neptune; objects with smaller q are thought to be part of the SD (Duncan and Levison, 1997), or, to be more precise, a ‘Neptune Scattered Disk.’”
• THE CANADA–FRANCE ECLIPTIC PLANE SURVEY—L3 DATA RELEASE: THE ORBITAL STRUCTURE OF THE KUIPER BELT (2009, background): “This population has a pericenter distribution with very few q’s above 40 AU, and541 may very well have been emplaced as a sort of fossilized scattered disk (Gladman et al. 2002) as illustrated542 in Morbidelli & Levison (2004).”
• Neptune’s Migration into a Stirred-Up Kuiper Belt: A Detailed Comparison of Simulations to Observations (2005, background): “The extended Scattered Disk is also of dynamical interest since, as Gladman et al. (2002) note, most dynamical models of the Kuiper Belt (including this one) generally produce Scattered Objects in lower perihelia orbits having q .”
• Scenarios for the Origin of the Orbits of the Trans-Neptunian Objects 2000 CR105 and 2003 VB12 (Sedna) (2004, background): “…objects because they are on orbits with semimajor axes similar to other scattered-disk objects but their perihelion distances are outside (or ‘‘extended’’ beyond) the range for the normal scattered disk (Duncan & Levison 1997; Gladman et al. 2002; Emel’yanenko et al. 2003; Morbidelli et al. 2004).”
• The origin of the Kuiper Belt high-inclination population (2003, background): “Gladman et al. (2002) show that clones from 2000 CR105 can reach a perihelion distance lower than 40 AU if their orbits are integrated for 5 10 years.”
• Nomenclature in the Outer Solar System (2008, background): “The outer classical belt is currently inhabited only by the high-quality-orbit TNOs 2003 UY 291 and 2001 QW 297 , which the discoverers classified as detached (Elliot et al., 2005), and 48639 = 1995 TL 8 , classified as detached by Gladman et al. (2002).”