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R. Gomes (GEA/OV/UFRJ & ON/MCT)
I propose a process that may account for the Kuiper Belt high inclination population. It is based on the classical migration scenario where the four major planets are induced to migrate due to energy and angular momentum exchange with planetesimals in a disk. Most of these planetesimals experience close approach perturbations from the migrating Neptune, thus forming a primitive scattered disk. Several works that perform numerical integration of Neptune scattered objects in the gravitational field of the major planets in non-migrating orbits have shown relatively low eccentricity incursions for the orbits of some objects. These incursions are only temporary and even though in some cases the object may stay in this low eccentricity mode for more than 1 billion years, it ends by finally returning to the Neptune close encounter region. However, when migration is still acting on the planets, several objects from the dense primordial Neptune scattered disk may experience a low eccentricity incursion without return, due to the nonconservative character of the system including the migrating Neptune and the evader object. The so formed objects will have an inclination distribution close to a debiased distribution of the observed high inclination KB population. This process produces around 0.05 Earth mass for these evaders from the Neptune scattered primordial disk.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34, #3< br> © 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.