Abstract

The role of density waves propagating in a primordial disk (i. e., belt) is investigated is shown that Neptune launches waves at its secular resonance near 40 AU which propagate radially outwards, deeper into the particle disk, The wavelength of waves is considerably longer than waves that might be launched at resonances because the pattern speed, resulting from the apse precession of Neptune is much slower than its mean motion, If the early Belt had a sufficient surface density, U, the disk's wave response to Neptune's secular perturbation have spread the disturbing torque radially over a collective A, where and are the mean motion and precession frequency of the disk particles, This results in considerably smaller eccentricities at resonance than had the disk particles been treated as non-interacting test particles. Consequently, are less apt to be excited into planet-crossing orbits, implying that the erosion reported by earlier test-particle simulations of the Belt may be underesti...

Citations