Neptune migration model with one extra planet

TL;DR

This study investigates a modified Neptune migration model with an extra planet to better explain Kuiper belt structures, but finds it has low probability and some observational inconsistencies.

Contribution

It introduces a Neptune migration model with an additional planet in resonance, aiming to improve Kuiper belt structure explanations over traditional models.

Findings

Better explanation of Kuiper belt features compared to standard models

Low probability of the proposed scenario

Potential inconsistency with observed low-inclination Kuiper belt objects

Abstract

We explore conventional Neptune migration model with one additional planet of mass at 0.1-2.0 Me. This planet inhabited in the 3:2 mean motion resonance with Neptune during planet migration epoch, and then escaped from the Kuiper belt when Jovian planets parked near the present orbits. Adding this extra planet and assuming the primordial disk truncated at about 45 AU in the conventional Neptune migration model, it is able to explain the complex structure of the observed Kuiper belt better than the usual Neptune migration model did in several respects. However, numerical experiments imply that this model is a low-probability event. In addition to the low probability, two features produced by this model may be inconsistent with the observations. They are small number of low-inclination particles in the classical belt, and the production of a remnant population with near-circular and low-inclination orbit within a = 50-52 AU. According to our present study, including one extra planet in the conventional Neptune migration model as the scenario we explored here may be unsuitable because of the low probability, and the two drawbacks mentioned above, although this model can explain better several features which is hard to produce by the conventional Neptune migration model. The issues of low-probability event and the lack of low-inclination KBOs in the classical belt are interesting and may be studied further under a more realistic consideration.