Signatures of a Distant Planet on the Inclination Distribution of the Detached Kuiper Belt
- 1 October 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Vol. 920 (1), L9
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac26ca
Abstract
A distant, massive planet in the outer solar system has recently been proposed to explain some observed features of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Here we use N-body simulations of the formation of the Kuiper Belt and Oort cloud as well as a survey simulator to compare models of the solar system with and without a ninth planet to one another as well as to observations. The main mechanism for TNOs to be deposited into the distant (a > 50 au), detached (q > 40 au) region of the Kuiper Belt in the eight-planet model is Kozai-Lidov oscillation of objects in mean motion resonances (MMR) with Neptune. This effect does not deposit low-inclination (i less than or similar to 20 degrees) objects into this region. However, we find that the ninth planet generates a group of distant, detached TNOs at low inclinations that are not present in the eight-planet model. This disparity between the eight-planet and nine-planet models could provide a strong constraint on a possible planet nine with further detections of TNOs in the distant, detached region of the Kuiper Belt.This publication has 34 references indexed in Scilit:
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