Martin J. Duncan & Harold F. Levison (1997)
4-Gyr integrations show Neptune-scattered objects can form a long-lived disk that supplies today’s Jupiter-family comets.
Long-term orbital integrations predict a distinct reservoir of icy bodies beyond Neptune created by early close encounters with Neptune. These “scattered disk” objects differ from classical Kuiper belt objects by spanning much wider eccentricities and inclinations, while a small fraction (~1%) can survive for the solar system’s age. The inferred present-day population needed (as low as ~6×10^8 objects) is sufficient to feed the observed Jupiter-family comets, linking comet supply to outer-planet scattering. The discovery of objects with matching orbital elements (1996 RQ20 and 1996 TL66) provides early observational support for the predicted reservoir, relevant for understanding pathways (including secular inclination–eccentricity cycling such as Lidov–Kozai-type behavior) that shape comet-source regions.
numerical orbital integrations over 4 billion years to follow Neptune-scattered test particles and their long-term survival
celestial mechanics and solar-system small-body dynamics (Kuiper belt, scattering by Neptune, and secular effects like Lidov–Kozai)