Our Solar System as a Debris Disk

The Debiased Kuiper Belt: Our Solar System as a Debris Disk

Authors:

Lawler et al

Abstract:

The dust measured in debris disks traces the position of planetesimal belts. In our Solar System, we are also able to measure the largest planetesimals directly and can extrapolate down to make an estimate of the dust. The zodiacal dust from the asteroid belt is better constrained than the only rudimentary measurements of Kuiper belt dust. Dust models will thus be based on the current orbital distribution of the larger bodies which provide the collisional source. The orbital distribution of many Kuiper belt objects is strongly affected by dynamical interactions with Neptune, and the structure cannot be understood without taking this into account. We present the debiased Kuiper belt as measured by the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS). This model includes the absolute populations for objects with diameters greater than 100 km, measured orbital distributions, and size distributions of the components of the Kuiper belt: the classical belt (hot, stirred, and kernel components), the scattering disk, the detached objects, and the resonant objects (1:1, 5:4, 4:3, 3:2 including Kozai subcomponent, 5:3, 7:4, 2:1, 7:3, 5:2, 3:1, and 5:1). Because a large fraction of known debris disks are consistent with dust at Kuiper belt distances from the host stars, the CFEPS Kuiper belt model provides an excellent starting point for a debris disk model, as the dynamical interactions with planets interior to the disk are well-understood and can be precisely modelled using orbital integrations.