Feasibility of a resonance-based Planet Nine search
Elizabeth Bailey, Michael E. Brown, Konstantin Batygin
(Submitted on 7 Sep 2018)
It has been proposed that mean motion resonances (MMRs) between Planet Nine and distant objects of the scattered disk might inform the semimajor axis and instantaneous position of Planet Nine. Within the context of this hypothesis, the specific distribution of occupied MMRs largely determines the available constraints. Here we characterize the behavior of scattered Kuiper Belt objects arising in the presence of an eccentric Planet Nine (e9∈0.1, 0.7), focusing on relative sizes of populations occupying particular commensurabilities. Highlighting the challenge of predicting the exact MMR of a given object, we find that the majority of resonant test particles have period ratios with Planet Nine other than those of the form P9/P=N/1, N/2 (N∈ℤ+). Taking into account the updated prior distribution of MMRs outlined in this work, we find that the close spacing of high-order resonances, as well as chaotic transport, preclude resonance-based Planet Nine constraints from current observational data.
Comments: 6 pages, 7 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Journal reference: AJ 156:74, 2018
DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881
Cite as: arXiv:1809.02594 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1809.02594v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Elizabeth Bailey
[v1] Fri, 7 Sep 2018 17:37:47 GMT (740kb,D)
