The Secular Evolution of the Primordial Kuiper Belt

Abstract

A model that computes the secular evolution of a gravitating disk-planet system is developed. The disk is treated as a set of gravitating rings, with the rings'/planets' time-evolution governed by the classical Laplace-Lagrange solution for secular evolution but modified to account for the disk's finite thickness h. This system's Lagrange planetary equations yield a particular class of spiral wave solutions, usually denoted as apsidal density waves and nodal bending waves. There are two varieties of apsidal waves:long waves and short waves. Planets typically launch long density waves at the disk's nearer edge or else at a secular resonance in the disk, and these waves ultimately reflect downstream at a more distant disk edge or else at a Q-barrier in the disk, whereupon they return as short density waves. Planets also launch nodal bending waves, and these have the property that they can stall in the disk, that is, their group velocity plummets to zero upon approaching a disk region too thick to support the continued propagation of bending waves. The rings model is used to compute the secular evolution of a Kuiper Belt having a variety of masses, and it is shown that the early massive Belt was very susceptible to the propagation of low-amplitude apsidal and nodal waves launched by the giant planets.

45 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (8)

• THE ORIGIN OF PLUTO'S ORBIT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM BEYOND NEPTUNE
• Orbital Evolution of Planets Embedded in a Planetesimal Disk
• Accretion in the Early Kuiper Belt II. Fragmentation
• The formation of Uranus and Neptune among Jupiter and Saturn
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• Gravitational Stirring in Planetary Debris Disks
• Slow modes in Keplerian disks
• Long-lived lop-sided modes of annular disks orbiting a central mass

Cited by in corpus (28)

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• Planet Formation in Disks with Inclined Binary Companions: Can Primordial Spin-Orbit Misalignment be Produced?
• Formation of Gaps in Self-Gravitating Debris Disks by Secular Resonance in a Single-planet System I: A Simplified Model
• Neptune on tiptoes: dynamical histories that preserve the cold classical Kuiper belt
• Not a simple relationship between Neptune's migration speed and Kuiper belt inclination excitation
• Shepherding in a Self-Gravitating Disk of Trans-Neptunian Objects
• Stellar Oblateness versus Distant Giants in Exciting Kepler Planet Mutual Inclinations
• Schrödinger Evolution of Self-Gravitating Disks
• Water delivery to the TRAPPIST-1 planets
• Eccentric Modes in Disks With Pressure and Self-Gravity
• The resilience of Kepler systems to stellar obliquity
• A Secular Resonant Origin for the Loneliness of Hot Jupiters
• A Simplified Model for the Secular Dynamics of Eccentric Discs and Applications to Planet-Disc Interactions
• Potential softening and eccentricity dynamics in razor-thin, nearly-Keplerian discs
• The Secular Evolution of a Close Ring-Satellite System: The Excitation of Spiral Bending Waves at a Nearby Gap Edge
• The vertical structure of debris discs and the role of disc gravity: A primer using a simplified model
• Secular Evolution Driven by Massive Eccentric Disks/Rings: An Apsidally Aligned Case
• Self-gravity of debris discs can strongly change the outcomes of interactions with inclined planets
• The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS): VI. Asymmetries and offsets
• The Secular Evolution of a Close Ring-Satellite System: The Excitation of Spiral Density Waves at a Nearby Gap Edge
• Sculpting of Exoplanetary Systems Driven by a Misaligned Disk and Stellar Oblateness: Origin of Perpendicular Orbits in HD 3167
• On dynamical friction in a gaseous medium with a boundary
• Bifurcated Evolutionary Pathways in Multi-planet Systems Driven by Misaligned Protoplanetary Disks
• Eigenstates of Quasi-Keplerian Self-Gravitating Particle Discs
• A Primordial Origin for Misalignments Between Stellar Spin Axes and Planetary Orbits