The Structure of the Kuiper Belt: Size Distribution and Radial Extent

The size distribution in the Kuiper Belt records physical processes operating during the formation and subsequent evolution of the solar system. This paper reports a study of the apparent magnitude distribution of faint objects in the Kuiper Belt, obtained via deep imaging on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and the ESO Very Large Telescope UT1. We —nd that the entire range of observed objects (magnitudes is well represented by an unbroken power law, with the number of objects per m R D 20¨27) square degree brighter than magnitude R being of the form with a \ 0.69 and &(m R \ R) \ 10a(R~R0),

[1]  Harold F. Levison,et al.  A Search for Proto-Comets in the Outer Regions of the Solar System , 1990 .

[2]  Jack Wisdom,et al.  Dynamical Stability in the Outer Solar System and the Delivery of Short Period Comets , 1993 .

[3]  R. Gomes.  Planetary Migration and Plutino Orbital Inclinations , 2000 .

[4]  Scott J. Kenyon,et al.  Accretion in the Early Outer Solar System , 1999 .

[5]  A. Boss,et al.  Protostars and Planets VI , 2000 .

[6]  R. Smoluchowski,et al.  Chaotic motion in a primordial comet disk beyond Neptune and comet influx to the Solar System , 1990, Nature.

[7]  C. Trujillo,et al.  A new dynamical class of object in the outer Solar System , 1997, Nature.

[8]  T. Loredo,et al.  Pencil-Beam Surveys for Faint Trans-Neptunian Objects , 1998, astro-ph/9806344.

[9]  R. Webster,et al.  A Search for Bright Kuiper Belt Objects , 1998, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia.

[10]  E. Chiang,et al.  Keck Pencil-Beam Survey for Faint Kuiper Belt Objects , 1999, astro-ph/9905292.

[11]  Harold F. Levison,et al.  From the Kuiper Belt to Jupiter-Family Comets: The Spatial Distribution of Ecliptic Comets☆ , 1997 .

[12]  S. Stern,et al.  Collisional Erosion in the Primordial Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt and the Generation of the 30-50 AU Kuiper Gap , 1997 .

[13]  G. Bernstein,et al.  Orbit Fitting and Uncertainties for Kuiper Belt Objects , 2000 .

[14]  Renu Malhotra,et al.  The origin of Pluto's orbit: implications for the , 1994, astro-ph/9504036.

[15]  S. Ida,et al.  P417 Evidence for early stellar encounters in the orbital distribution of Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects , 1999, astro-ph/9907217.

[16]  Julio A. Fernández,et al.  Some dynamical aspects of the accretion of Uranus and Neptune: The exchange of orbital angular momentum with planetesimals , 1984 .

[17]  Renu Malhotra,et al.  The Phase Space Structure Near Neptune Resonances in the Kuiper Belt , 1995, astro-ph/9509141.

[18]  B. Gladman,et al.  On the Fates of Minor Bodies in the Outer Solar System , 1990 .

[19]  M. Moons,et al.  The Resonant Structure of the Kuiper Belt and the Dynamics of the First Five Trans-Neptunian Objects , 1995 .

[20]  Arlo U. Landolt,et al.  UBVRI Photometric Standard Stars in the Magnitude Range 11 , 1992 .

[21]  Julio A. Fernández.  Mass removed by the outer planets in the early solar system , 1978 .

[22]  M. Lecar,et al.  On the original distribution of the asteriods. I. , 1990 .

[23]  Alessandro Morbidelli,et al.  Chaotic Diffusion and the Origin of Comets from the 2/3 Resonance in the Kuiper Belt , 1997 .

[24]  Harold F. Levison,et al.  Modeling the Diversity of Outer Planetary Systems , 1998 .

[25]  Harold F. Levison,et al.  The Dynamical Structure of the Kuiper Belt , 1995 .

[26]  R. Jedicke,et al.  The Spacewatch Wide-Area Survey for Bright Centaurs and Trans-Neptunian Objects , 2001 .

[27]  Harold F. Levison,et al.  The formation of Uranus and Neptune in the Jupiter–Saturn region of the Solar System , 1999, Nature.

[28]  R. H. Brown,et al.  Circumstellar Dust Disks around Stars with Known Planetary Companions , 2000 .

[29]  M. Duncan,et al.  A disk of scattered icy objects and the origin of Jupiter-family comets. , 1997, Science.

[30]  M. Ashley,et al.  A Wide-Field CCD Survey For Centaurs and Kuiper Belt Objects , 2000 .

[31]  Gerard A. Luppino,et al.  CFH12K: Optimising 12 MIT/LL CCID-20 CCDs for a direct imaging application , 2000 .

[32]  S. Tremaine,et al.  A Search for Slow-Moving Objects and the Luminosity Function of the Kuiper Belt , 1995 .

[33]  C. Trujillo,et al.  Large Kuiper Belt Objects: The Mauna Kea 8K CCD Survey , 1998 .

[34]  G. Wetherill,et al.  Terrestrial planet and asteroid formation in the presence of giant planets. I. Relative velocities of planetesimals subject to Jupiter and Saturn perturbations. , 2000, Icarus.

[35]  M. Torbett.  Chaotic motion in a comet disk beyond Neptune - The delivery of short-period comets , 1989 .

[36]  D. Lin,et al.  Orbital Migration of Neptune and Orbital Distribution of Trans-Neptunian Objects , 2000 .

[37]  J. Colwell,et al.  Accretion in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt: Forming 100-1000 KM Radius Bodies at 30 AU and Beyond. , 1997 .

[38]  M. Melita,et al.  On the Existence of a Primordial Cometary Belt between Uranus and Neptune , 1998 .

[39]  J. Petit,et al.  Large Scattered Planetesimals and the Excitation of the Small Body Belts , 1999 .

[40]  Paolo Farinella,et al.  Collisional Evolution of Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt Objects , 1997 .

[41]  D. Jewitt,et al.  The Mauna Kea-Cerro-Tololo (MKCT) Kuiper Belt and Centaur Survey , 1996 .

[42]  G. Valsecchi,et al.  NEPTUNE SCATTERED PLANETESIMALS COULD HAVE SCULPTED THE PRIMORDIAL EDGEWORTH-KUIPER BELT , 1997 .

[43]  Trujillo,et al.  Population of the Scattered Kuiper Belt. , 2000, The Astrophysical journal.

[44]  C. Kowal,et al.  A solar system survey , 1989 .

[45]  Julio A. Fernández,et al.  The Buildup of a Tightly Bound Comet Cloud around an Early Sun Immersed in a Dense Galactic Environment: Numerical Experiments , 2000 .

[46]  D. Jewitt,et al.  Deep Imaging of the Kuiper Belt with the Keck 10 Meter Telescope , 1998 .

[47]  The Edge of the Solar System , 2000, astro-ph/0011037.

[48]  Matthew J. Holman,et al.  A possible long-lived belt of objects between Uranus and Neptune , 1997, Nature.

[49]  D. Nesvorný,et al.  Mean Motion Resonances in the Transneptunian Region. Part II: The 1 : 2, 3 : 4, and Weaker Resonances , 2001 .

[50]  James W. Beletic,et al.  Optical Detectors For Astronomy Ii , 2012 .

[51]  J. S. Dohnanyi.  Collisional model of asteroids and their debris , 1969 .

[52]  Brett Gladman.  Twenty-eight ways to build a solar system , 1998, Nature.

[53]  C. J. Cohen,et al.  LIBRATION OF THE CLOSE APPROACHES OF PLUTO TO NEPTUNE , 1965 .

[54]  The Discovery of Halley-sized Kuiper Belt Objects Using the Hubble Space Telescope , 1995, astro-ph/9509100.

[55]  Harold F. Levison,et al.  The Gravitational Sculpting of the Kuiper Belt , 1993 .

[56]  Orbital Evolution of Planets Embedded in a Planetesimal Disk , 1999, astro-ph/9902370.