Paper: astro-ph/0512256

Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2005 18:09:29 GMT (1409kb)

Title: Origin and Dynamical Evolution of Comets and their Reservoirs

Authors: Alessandro Morbidelli

Comments: Lectures on comets dynamics and outer solar system formation. 86
pages, 34 figures, 180 references
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This text was originally written to accompany a series of lectures that I
gave at the `35th Saas-Fee advanced course' in Switzerland and at the Institute
for Astronomy of the University of Hawaii. It reviews my current understanding
of the dynamics of comets and of the origin and primordial sculpting of their
reservoirs. It starts discussing the structure of the Kuiper belt and the
current dynamics of Kuiper belt objects, including scattered disk objects. Then
it discusses the dynamical evolution of Jupiter family comets from the
trans-Neptunian region, and of long period comets from the Oort cloud. The
formation of the Oort cloud is then reviewed, as well as the primordial
sculpting of the Kuiper belt. Finally, these issues are revisited in the light
of a new model of giant planets evolution that has been developed to explain
the origin of the late heavy bombardment of the terrestrial planets.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512256 , 1301kb)