Title:
Large Scattered Planetesimals and the Excitation of the Small Body Belts
Authors:
Petit, Jean-Marc; Morbidelli, Alessandro; Valsecchi, Giovanni B.
Affiliation:
AA(Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Nice Cedex 4, France),
AB(Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique, Nice Cedex 4, France), AC(IAS-Planetologia, Area
di Ricerca del C.N.R.,
Rome, Italy)
Journal:
Icarus, Volume 141, Issue Icarus, pp. 367-387. (Icarus Homepage)
Publication Date:
10/1999
Origin:
ICAR
Abstract Copyright:
(c) 1999: Academic Press
Bibliographic Code:
1999Icar..141..367P
Abstract
We study the dynamical excitation that large planetesimals, scattered
either by Neptune or Jupiter, could have provided to the
primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper belt and the asteroid belt. Using both
a refined Monte Carlo approach and direct numerical
integration, we show that the Monte Carlo method is useful only to
give qualitative insight into the resulting excitation, but cannot
be trusted from a quantitative viewpoint. According to our direct integrations,
Neptune-scattered planetesimals of mass from a
few tenths to one Earth mass could have ejected most of the bodies
from the primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, thus explaining
the large mass deficiency of the present belt up to about 50 AU. The
remaining bodies are left on orbits with eccentricity and
inclination comparable to those observed. This dynamical excitation
is not restricted to the inner part of the belt but may extend to
100 AU. We also show that Pluto has too small a mass to destabilize
the motion of other bodies in the 2:3 mean motion resonance
with Neptune. The same mechanism involving Jupiter-scattered planetesimals
of about one Earth mass can excite the outer
asteroid belt, hence depleting it of most of its primordial mass. However,
this fails to excite the inner belt. In the case where the
planetesimals are isolated by mutual gravitational perturbations on
long-lived main-belt-like orbits, safe from encounters with
Jupiter, the resulting asteroid belt is very similar to the currently
observed one, in terms of mass deficiency, excitation in
eccentricity and inclination, and radial mixing. Pallas-like bodies
are also obtained. However, the decoupling of planetesimals
from Jupiter on well-behaved orbits is rather improbable (2% of our
simulations), and the resulting asteroid belt is very critically
dependent on the mass of the scattered planetesimals and their residence
time in the belt.