Beyond the Kuiper Belt Edge: New High Perihelion Trans-Neptunian Objects With Moderate Semi-major Axes and Eccentricities

Abstract

We have been conducting a survey for distant solar system objects beyond the Kuiper Belt edge (~50 AU) with new wide-field cameras on the Subaru 8 meter and CTIO 4 meter telescopes. We are interested in the orbits of objects that are decoupled from the giant planet region in order to understand the structure of the outer solar system, including whether a massive planet exists beyond a few hundred AU as first reported by Trujillo and Sheppard (2014). In addition to discovering extreme trans-Neptunian objects detailed elsewhere, we have found several objects with high perihelia (q>40 AU) that differ from the extreme and inner Oort cloud objects due to their moderate semi-major axes (50<a<100 AU) and eccentricities (e<0.3). Newly discovered objects 2014 FZ71 and 2015 FJ345 have the third and fourth highest perihelia known after Sedna and 2012 VP113, yet their orbits are not nearly as eccentric or distant. We found several of these high perihelion but moderate orbit objects and observe that they are mostly near Neptune mean motion resonances and have significant inclinations (i>20 degrees). These moderate objects likely obtained their unusual orbits through combined interactions with Neptune's mean motion resonances and the Kozai resonance, similar to the origin scenarios for 2004 XR190. We also find the distant 2008 ST291 has likely been modified by the MMR+KR mechanism through the 6:1 Neptune resonance. We discuss these moderately eccentric, distant objects along with some other interesting low inclination outer classical belt objects like 2012 FH84 discovered in our ongoing survey.

Accepted Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (3)

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• The 5:1 Neptune Resonance as Probed by CFEPS: Dynamics and Population
• Dynamical formation of detached trans-Neptunian objects close to the 2:5 and 1:3 mean motion resonances with Neptune

Cited by in corpus (12)

• New Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects: Towards a Super-Earth in the Outer Solar System
• Tracking Neptune's Migration History through High-Perihelion Resonant Trans-Neptunian Objects
• A search of the full six years of the Dark Energy Survey for outer Solar System objects
• The orbital distribution of trans-Neptunian objects beyond 50 au
• Orbital clustering in the distant solar system
• Study and application of the resonant secular dynamics beyond Neptune
• Trajectory of the stellar flyby that shaped the outer solar system
• The Large Array Survey Telescope -- Science Goals
• Is There an Earth-like Planet in the Distant Kuiper Belt?
• Stability of Neptune's distant resonances in the presence of Planet Nine
• Outer Solar System Perihelion Gap Formation Through Interactions with a Hypothetical Distant Giant Planet
• Enhancing Ground-Based Observations of Trans-Neptunian Objects using a Single-Epoch Parallax Measurement from L2