Related papers: The Structure of the Distant Kuiper Belt in a Nice…
We numerically investigate the possibility that a close stellar encounter could account for the high inclinations of the Kuiper belt, as originally proposed by Ida, Larwood and Burkert, however we consider encounters with pericenters within…
Using numerical simulations, we examine the structure of a cometary population near a massive planet, such as a giant planet of the Solar system, starting with one-planet approximation (the Sun plus one planet). By studying the…
The widely-separated, near-equal mass binaries hosted by the cold Classical Kuiper Belt are delicately bound and subject to disruption by many perturbing processes. We use analytical arguments and numerical simulations to determine their…
The dynamics of the high-inclination Plutinos is systematically studied. We first present the peculiar features of the 2:3 Neptune mean motion resonance (NMMR) for inclined orbits, especially for the correlation of resonant amplitude…
Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) in the scattered disk with 50 < a < 100 au are thought to cluster near Neptune's n:1 resonances (e.g: 3:1, 4:1, and so on). While these objects spend lengthy periods of time at large heliocentric distances, if…
We present numerical simulations of giant planet migration in our solar system and examine how the speed of planetary migration affects inclinations in the resulting population of small bodies (test particles) scattered outward and…
Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are a transient population of small bodies with orbits near or in the terrestrial planet region. They represent a mid-stage in the dynamical cycle of asteroids and comets, which starts with their removal from the…
The trans-Neptunian region of the solar system exhibits an intricate dynamical structure, much of which can be explained by an instability-driven orbital history of the giant planets. However, the origins of a highly inclined, and in…
Recent observations (Burnes et al 2002,Veillet et al 2002, Margot et al 2002a) have revealed an unexpectedly high binary fraction among the Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) that populate the Kuiper Belt. The TNO binaries are strikingly…
The first two observational sky "blocks" of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) have significantly increased the number of well-characterized observed trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in Neptune's mean motion resonances. We describe…
There is a complex inclination structure present in the transneptunian object (TNO) orbital distribution in the main classical belt region (between orbital semimajor axes of 39 and 48 au). The long-term gravitational effects of the giant…
The dust measured in debris disks traces the position of planetesimal belts. In our Solar System, we are also able to measure the largest planetesimals directly and can extrapolate down to make an estimate of the dust. The zodiacal dust…
The asteroid belt is characterized by an extreme low total mass of material on dynamically excited orbits. The Nice Model explains many peculiar qualities of the solar system, including the belt's excited state, by invoking an orbital…
We carried out extensive numerical orbit integrations to probe the long-term chaotic dynamics of the two strongest mean motion resonances of Neptune in the Kuiper belt, the 3:2 (Plutinos) and 2:1 (Twotinos). Our primary results include a…
The observation that the orbits of long-period Kuiper Belt objects are anomalously clustered in physical space has recently prompted the Planet Nine hypothesis - the proposed existence of a distant and eccentric planetary member of our…
We examine the dynamics of small bodies in orbits similar to that of comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, i.e. near-circular orbits between Jupiter and Saturn. As of late 2019, there are 14 other known bodies in this region that lie in similar…
Unlike the Solar System planets, thousands of smaller bodies beyond Neptune orbit the Sun on eccentric ($e >$ 0.1) and ($i>$ 3$^\circ$) orbits. While migration of the giant planets during the early stages of Solar System evolution can…
This paper reviews coagulation models for planet formation in the Kuiper Belt, emphasizing links to recent observations of our and other solar systems. At heliocentric distances of 35-50 AU, single annulus and multiannulus planetesimal…
The existence of the Oort Comet Cloud, the Kuiper Belt, and plausible inefficiencies in planetary core formation, all suggest that there was once a residual planetesimal disk of mass 10-100 Earth-masses in the vicinity of the giant planets…
The Scattered Disk Objects (SDOs) are a population of trans-Neptunian bodies with semimajor axes $50< a \lesssim 1000$ au and perihelion distances $q \gtrsim 30$ au. The detached SDOs with orbits beyond the reach of Neptune (roughly…