The Neptune Trojans – a new source for the Centaurs?
The Neptune Trojans – a new source for the Centaurs?
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海王星特洛伊人——半人马的新来源？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2010
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
P. S. Lykawka
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Jonathan Horner;P. S. Lykawka
半人马座是短周期彗星的主要来源，这一事实已经得到了很好的证实。然而，半人马本身的起源仍然存在一些争论，在过去的十年里提出了各种不同的物源储集层。在这项工作中，我们认为海王星特洛伊木马(连同木星特洛伊木马)可能是半人马的另一个重要来源。利用对发现的第一个海王星特洛伊木马(2001 QR322)的动力学模拟，以及在行星迁移模拟过程中获得的理论海王星特洛伊木马的云演变的积分，我们发现海王星特洛伊木马种群中包含大量在Myr和Gyr时间尺度上都不稳定的物体。通过单独的例子，我们展示了离开海王星特洛伊木马云的物体如何演化到与已知的半人马星体难以区分的轨道上，然后提供了从该区域到半人马星体数量的一系列估计。只有在适度的假设下，木马可以贡献很大比例的半人马种群，甚至可能是主要的来源储藏者。这一结果得到了过去关于特洛伊人和半人马颜色的研究的支持，但还需要未来的观察来确定逃脱的特洛伊人对半人马种群的贡献的全部规模。
The fact that the Centaurs are the primary source of the short-period comets is well established. However, the origin of the Centaurs themselves is still under some debate, with a variety of different source reservoirs being proposed in the last decade. In this work, we suggest that the Neptune Trojans (together with the Jovian Trojans) could represent an additional significant source of Centaurs. Using dynamical simulations of the first Neptune Trojan discovered (2001 QR322), together with integrations following the evolution of clouds of theoretical Neptune Trojans obtained during simulations of planetary migration, we show that the Neptune Trojan population contains a great number of objects which are unstable on both Myr and Gyr time-scales. Using individual examples, we show how objects that leave the Neptunian Trojan cloud evolve on to orbits indistinguishable from those of the known Centaurs, before providing a range of estimates of the flux from this region to the Centaur population. With only moderate assumptions, it is shown that the Trojans can contribute a significant proportion of the Centaur population, and may even be the dominant source reservoir. This result is supported by past work on the colours of the Trojans and the Centaurs, but it will take future observations to determine the full scale of the contribution of the escaped Trojans to the Centaur population.