Over the past two decades, our knowledge of the Solar System’s transneptunian region (often called the Kuiper Belt) has been gradually increasing. Observational surveys have greatly expanded the inventory of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), which are distant icy bodies thought to be relics from the giant planet formation era.
In the distant Kuiper Belt, several striking features seem to challenge our previous understanding of the early Solar System: 1) a very large population of objects in distant mean-motion resonances with Neptune, 2) a substantial detached population that are not dynamically coupled with Neptune’s effects, and 3) the existence of three very-large perihelion objects. I demonstrated in this thesis, that a super-Earth-mass planet temporarily present in the Solar System on a Neptune crossing orbit (referred to as a ‘Rogue Planet’), is able to create all these structures in the distant Kuiper Belt. Such a planet would have formed in the giant planet region and gotten scattered to a highly-eccentric orbit with a few hundred au semimajor axis with a typical lifetime of 100 Myr. Additionally, I showed this transient planet would not have heated the cold belt’s very low free inclinations to larger than observed. Both the structures in the distant belt and the existence of an unheated cold belt provide constraints to narrow down the mass and possible dynamical histories the rogue might have taken.
BIO
Yukun Huang (黄宇坤) earned his PhD in astronomy from the University of British Columbia, under the mentorship of Professor Brett Gladman. His research encompasses a broad spectrum of topics within celestial mechanics, such as the dynamics of retrograde resonances, Earth–Mars belt, the Kuiper belt, and the formation and dynamical evolution of the Solar System. In addition to his individual research, Yukun actively collaborates as a member of the Classical and Large-A Distant Solar System (CLASSY)
Host: Wei Zhu
