Origin and orbital distribution of the trans-Neptunian scattered disc

Abstract

We revisit the scenario proposed by Duncan and Levison in the late 1990s on the origin of the trans-Neptunian scattered disc. According to this scenario, the current scattered disc population is the remnant of a much more massive population that formed at the beginning of the Solar system, presumably when Neptune grew in mass. In order to compute the expected orbital distribution of the scattered disc bodies in the framework of this model, we have integrated the evolution of several thousands of test particles over the age of the Solar system, and looked at the orbital distribution of those surviving after more than 2 × 109 yr from their first scattering event. In order to compare this model distribution with the observed distribution, we have modelled the observational biases by generalizing a method originally introduced recently by Trujillo and Brown. Once the biases are taken into account, the model distribution matches the observed distribution fairly well. The most significant discrepancy is that the observed perihelion distance distribution is somewhat skewed towards larger perihelion distances than our model predicts. This is possibly due to the effects of planet migration (which tends to raise perihelion distances as recently shown by Gomes), which is not taken into account in our simulations.