Origin and Dynamical Evolution of Comets and their Reservoirs

Abstract

This text was originally written to accompany a series of lectures that I gave at the `35th Saas-Fee advanced course' in Switzerland and at the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. It reviews my current understanding of the dynamics of comets and of the origin and primordial sculpting of their reservoirs. It starts discussing the structure of the Kuiper belt and the current dynamics of Kuiper belt objects, including scattered disk objects. Then it discusses the dynamical evolution of Jupiter family comets from the trans-Neptunian region, and of long period comets from the Oort cloud. The formation of the Oort cloud is then reviewed, as well as the primordial sculpting of the Kuiper belt. Finally, these issues are revisited in the light of a new model of giant planets evolution that has been developed to explain the origin of the late heavy bombardment of the terrestrial planets.

Lectures on comets dynamics and outer solar system formation. 86 pages, 34 figures, 180 references

References in corpus (1)

• The Size-Frequency Distribution of Dormant Jupiter Family Comets

Cited by in corpus (12)

• An Outer Planet Beyond Pluto and Origin of the Trans-Neptunian Belt Architecture
• Resonance sticking in the scattered disk
• The scattering of small bodies in planetary systems: constraints on the possible orbits of cometary material
• Models of the Collisional Damping Scenario for Ice Giant Planets and Kuiper Belt Formatio
• Jupiter - friend or foe? III: the Oort cloud comets
• Cometary diversity and cometary families
• Innocent Bystanders: Orbital Dynamics of Exomoons during Planet-Planet Scattering
• Where do long-period comets come from? Moving through Jupiter-Saturn barrier
• Near-parabolic comets observed in 2006-2010. The individualized approach to 1/a-determination and the new distribution of original and future orbits
• MOND orbits in the Oort cloud
• Effects of the Planar Galactic Tides and Stellar Mass on Comet Cloud Dynamics
• Habitability on local, Galactic and cosmological scales