On the dynamical origins of retrograde Jupiter Trojans and their connection to high-inclination TNOs
- PDF / 961,041 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 71 Downloads / 145 Views
(2020) 132:44
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
On the dynamical origins of retrograde Jupiter Trojans and their connection to high-inclination TNOs Tobias Köhne1
· Konstantin Batygin1
Received: 14 October 2019 / Revised: 14 August 2020 / Accepted: 28 August 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Over the course of the last decade, observations of highly inclined (orbital inclination i > 60◦ ) trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) have posed an important challenge to current models of solar system formation (Levison et al. in Icarus 196(1):258–273, 2008; Nesvorný in Astron J 150:73, 2015). These remarkable minor planets necessitate the presence of a distant reservoir of strongly out-of-plane TNOs, which itself requires some dynamical production mechanism (Gladman et al. in Astron J Lett 697:L91–L94, 2009; Gomes et al. in Icarus 258:37–49, 2015; Batygin and Brown in Astrophys J 833(1):L3, 2016). A notable recent addition to the census of high-i minor bodies in the solar system is the retrograde asteroid 514107 Ka’epaoka’awela, which currently occupies a 1:-1 mean motion resonance with Jupiter at i = 163◦ (Wiegert et al. in Nature 543:687–689, 2017). In this work, we delineate a direct connection between retrograde Jupiter Trojans and high-i Centaurs. First, we backpropagate a large sample of clones of Ka’epaoka’awela for 100 Ma numerically and demonstrate that long-term stable clones tend to decrease their inclination steadily until it concentrates between 90◦ and 135◦ , while their eccentricity and semi-major axis increase, placing many of them firmly into the trans-Neptunian domain. Importantly, the clones show significant overlap with the synthetic high-i Centaurs generated in Planet 9 studies (Batygin et al. in Phys Rep 805:1–53, 2019), and hint at the existence of a relatively prominent, steady-state population of minor bodies occupying polar trans-Saturnian orbits. Second, through direct numerical forward modeling, we delineate the dynamical pathway through which conventional members of the Kuiper Belt’s scattered disk population can become retrograde Jovian Trojan resonators in the presence of Planet 9. Keywords Retrograde · Trojans · Centaurs · TNO
This article is part of the topical collection on Trans-Neptunian Objects. Guest Editors: David Nesvorny and Alessandra Celletti.
B
Tobias Köhne [email protected] Konstantin Batygin [email protected]
1
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 0123456789().: V,-vol
123
44
Page 2 of 11
T. Köhne, K. Batygin
1 Introduction Small solar system bodies (SSSBs) like comets and asteroids have been observed for over 2000 and 200 years, respectively. Originally thought to be divine signs, SSSBs today are understood to be remnants of the planetary formation process that hold key insights into the history of our solar system. In particular, the two main characteristics of such bodies that inform the long-term evolution of the solar system are their compositions and their orbital histories.
Data Loading...
