Dynamical Heating Induced by Dwarf Planets on Cold Kuiper Belt-like Debris Disks

Abstract

With the use of long-term numerical simulations, we study the evolution and orbital behavior of cometary nuclei in cold Kuiper belt-like debris disks under the gravitational influence of dwarf planets (DPs); we carry out these simulations with and without the presence of a Neptune-like giant planet. This exploratory study shows that in the absence of a giant planet, 10 DPs are enough to induce strong radial and vertical heating on the orbits of belt particles. On the other hand, the presence of a giant planet close to the debris disk, acts as a stability agent reducing the radial and vertical heating. With enough DPs, even in the presence of a Neptune-like giant planet some radial heating remains; this heating grows steadily, re-filling resonances otherwise empty of cometary nuclei. Specifically for the solar system, this secular process seems to be able to provide material that, through resonant chaotic diffusion, increase the rate of new comets spiraling into the inner planetary system, but only if more than the $\sim 10$ known DP sized objects exist in the trans-Neptunian region.

9 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in APjL

References in corpus (4)

• The Evidence for Slow Migration of Neptune from the Inclination Distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects
• The Scattered Disk as the source of the Jupiter Family comets
• Formation of Super-Earth Mass Planets at 125-250 AU from a Solar-type Star
• Resonant Trapping in the Galactic Disc and Halo and its Relation with Moving Groups

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• The Contribution of Dwarf Planets to the Origin of Low Inclination Comets by the Replenishment of Mean Motion Resonances in Debris Disks
• Testing the Impact of Planet-stirring, Self-stirring, and Mixed-stirring on Debris Disc Architecture: A Case Study of HD 16743