Origin of the structure of the Kuiper belt during a dynamical instability in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune

By Harold Levison, A. Morbidelli, C. Laerhoven, R. Gomes, Kleomenis Tsiganis. 2007

435 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We explore the origin and orbital evolution of the Kuiper belt in the framework of a recent model of the dynamical evolution of the giant planets, sometimes known as the Nice model. This model is characterized by a short, but violent, instability phase, during which the planets were on large eccentricity orbits. It successfully explains, for the first time, the current orbital architecture of the giant planets [Tsiganis, K., Gomes, R., Morbidelli, A., Levison, H.F., 2005. Nature 435, 459–461], the existence of the Trojans populations of Jupiter and Neptune [Morbidelli, A., Levison, H.F., Tsiganis, K., Gomes, R., 2005. Nature 435, 462–465], and the origin of the late heavy bombardment of the terrestrial planets [Gomes, R., Levison, H.F., Tsiganis, K., Morbidelli, A., 2005. Nature 435, 466–469]. One characteristic of this model is that the proto-planetary disk must have been truncated at roughly 30 to 35 AU so that Neptune would stop migrating at its currently observed location. As a result, the Kuiper belt would have initially been empty. In this paper we present a new dynamical mechanism which can deliver objects from the region interior to ∼ 35 AU to the Kuiper belt without excessive inclination excitation. In particular, we show that during the phase when Neptune's eccentricity is large, the region interior to its 1:2 mean motion resonance becomes unstable and disk particles can diffuse into this area. In addition, we perform numerical simulations where the planets are forced to evolve using fictitious analytic forces, in a way consistent with the direct N -body simulations of the Nice model. Assuming that the last encounter with Uranus delivered Neptune onto a low-inclination orbit with a semi-major axis of ∼ 27 AU and an eccentricity of ∼0.3, and that subsequently Neptune's eccentricity damped in ∼1 My, our simulations reproduce the main observed properties of the Kuiper belt at an unprecedented level. In particular, our results explain, at least qualitatively: (1) the co-existence of resonant and non-resonant populations, (2) the eccentricity–inclination distribution of the Plutinos, (3) the peculiar semi-major axis—eccentricity distribution in the classical belt, (4) the outer edge at the 1:2 mean motion resonance with Neptune, (5) the bi-modal inclination distribution of the classical population, (6) the correlations between inclination and physical properties in the classical Kuiper belt, and (7) the existence of the so-called extended scattered disk. Nevertheless, we observe in the simulations a deficit of nearly-circular objects in the classical Kuiper belt.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/67a061a19070ed593b44865820132e9ab6f58702

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Citations in the corpus

Populating the asteroid belt from two parent source regions due to the migration of giant planets—“The Grand Tack” (2012, background): “The essential characteristics of the Nice Model are quite different from the Grand Tack, as the migration of the giant planets during the Grand Tack is caused by interactions with the gas-disk, while migration during the Nice Model is driven by the gravitational scattering of planetesimals from a ma”
Oort cloud and Scattered Disc formation during a late dynamical instability in the Solar System (2012, background): “The most-cited sources estimating the flux are Everhart (1967), Hughes (2001) and Francis (2005).”
The primordial nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (2015, methodology): “For this scenario Nesvorný (2015) obtained PEKB = 0.32%, similar to that of Levison et al. (2008, 2011).”
EVIDENCE FOR SLOW MIGRATION OF NEPTUNE FROM THE INCLINATION DISTRIBUTION OF KUIPER BELT OBJECTS (2015, methodology): “3 A correlation between the width of the inclination distribution and the migration timescale/time of capture were previously reported by Malhotra (1995) and Levison et al. (2008). other Kuiper Belt constraints (Section 5).”
The Compositional Structure of the Asteroid Belt (2015, background): “Cuzzi, J., Hogan, R.C., Bottke, W.F., (2010) Towards initial mass functions for asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects.”
THE CANADA–FRANCE ECLIPTIC PLANE SURVEY—L3 DATA RELEASE: THE ORBITAL STRUCTURE OF THE KUIPER BELT (2009, methodology): “More worrying is the claim by Levison et al. (2008) that increasing the679 width of the initial population produced the same final inclination distribution, meaning there is a missing680 ingredient in this model to explain the dynamical structure of the Kuiper belt.”
CAPTURE OF TROJANS BY JUMPING JUPITER (2013, result): “This is encouraging because it favorably compares with estimates obtained by other means (e.g., Nesvorný et al. 2007, Levison et al. 2008, Charnoz et al. 2009, Morbidelli et al. 2009a).”
EVIDENCE FROM THE ASTEROID BELT FOR A VIOLENT PAST EVOLUTION OF JUPITER's ORBIT (2010, background): “A small fraction of the planetesimals of the outer disk survived on stable trans-Neptunian orbits, corresponding to today’s Kuiper belt (Levison et al., 2008).”
The dynamics of Jupiter and Saturn in the gaseous protoplanetary disk (2007, background): “…explains the current orbital architecture of the giant planets (orbital separations, eccentricities and mutual inclinations; Tsiganis et al., 2005) the origin and orbital distribution of the Trojans of Jupiter (Morbidelli et al., 2005) and the structure of the Kuiper belt (Levison et al., 2007).”
The planet nine hypothesis (2019, background): “…in the Kuiper belt further revealed that Neptune’s migration must have had a stochastic component, and likely occurred during a transient period of dynamical instability experienced by the outer solar system (Tsiganis et al. 2005; Levison et al. 2008; see also Nesvorný 2015a for a recent study).”
YOUNG SOLAR SYSTEM's FIFTH GIANT PLANET? (2011, background): “Finally, as evidenced by dynamical structures observed in the present Kuiper belt, planets radially migrated to their current orbits by scattering planetesimals (Malhotra et al. 1995, Levison et al. 2008).”
Origin and Evolution of Short-period Comets (2017, background): “They would become scattered by Neptune (Levison et al. 2008) with a small fraction ending in the scattered disk and Oort cloud, but this contribution should presumably be minor compared to that of the inner, more massive disk.”
EVIDENCE FOR A DISTANT GIANT PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM (2016, background): “…it is worth noting that although the primordial planetesimal disk of the solar system likely comprised tens of Earth masses (Tsiganis et al. 2005; Levison et al. 2008, 2011; Batygin et al. 2011), the vast majority of this material was ejected from the system by close encounters with the giant…”
FORMATION OF KUIPER BELT BINARIES BY GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE (2010, background): “Levison et al. (2008) proposed that most of the complex orbital structure seen in the KB region today (see, e.g., Gladman et al. 2008) can be explained if bodies native to 15- 35 AU were scattered to >35 AU by eccentric Neptune (Tsiganis et al. 2005).”
Dynamics of the Giant Planets of the Solar System in the Gaseous Protoplanetary Disk and Their Relationship to the Current Orbital Architecture (2007, background): “s and Neptune (Nesvorny et al., 2007). The main properties of the Kuiper belt (the relic of the primitive trans-planetary planetesimal disk) have also been explained in the context of the Nice model (Levison et al., 2007; see Morbidelli et al., 2007, for a review). The problem we are now facing is t”
COMETARY ORIGIN OF THE ZODIACAL CLOUD AND CARBONACEOUS MICROMETEORITES. IMPLICATIONS FOR HOT DEBRIS DISKS (2009, background): “The Nice model is compelling because it can explain many of the characteristics of the outer solar system (Tsiganis et al. 2005; Morbidelli et al. 2005; Nesvorný et al. 2007; Levison et al. 2008; Nesvorný & Vokrouhlický 2009).”
LATE ORBITAL INSTABILITIES IN THE OUTER PLANETS INDUCED BY INTERACTION WITH A SELF-GRAVITATING PLANETESIMAL DISK (2011, background): “…stirring is problematic when one considers that: (1) this disk probably contained on the order of 1000 Pluto-mass objects (Morbidelli et al. 2009b; Levison et al. 2008; Stern 1991), (2) the escape velocity of Pluto is ∼1 km s−1, and (3) the orbital velocity in the middle of the disk is 6 km s−1.”