Apsidal Clustering following the Inclination Instability
Abstract
Disks of low-mass bodies on high-eccentricity orbits in near-Keplerian potentials can be dynamically unstable to buckling out of the plane. In this Letter, we present N-body simulations of the long-term behavior of such a system, finding apsidal clustering of the orbits in the disk plane. The timescale over which the clustering is maintained increases with number of particles, suggesting that lopsided configurations are stable at large N. This discovery may explain the observed apsidal (ϖ) clustering of extreme trans-Neptunian Objects in the outer solar system.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- June 2020
- DOI:
- 10.3847/2041-8213/ab91a0
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2004.01198
- Bibcode:
- 2020ApJ...895L..27Z
- Keywords:
-
- Celestial mechanics;
- Orbits;
- Minor planets;
- Dynamical evolution;
- Gravitational instability;
- 211;
- 1184;
- 1065;
- 421;
- 668;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letters