THE 5:1 NEPTUNE RESONANCE AS PROBED BY CFEPS: DYNAMICS AND POPULATION

Abstract

The Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey discovered four trans-Neptunian objects with semi-major axes near the 5:1 resonance, revealing a large and previously undetected intrinsic population. Three of these objects are currently resonant with Neptune, and the fourth is consistent with being an object that escaped the resonance at some point in the past. The non-resonant object may be representative of a detached population that is stable at slightly lower semi-major axes than the 5:1 resonance. We generated clones of these objects by resampling the astrometric uncertainty and examined their behavior over a 4.5 Gyr numerical simulation. The majority of the clones of the three resonant objects (>90%) spend a total of 10^7 years in resonance during their 4.5 Gyr integrations; most clones experience multiple periods of resonance capture. Our dynamical integrations reveal an exchange between the 5:1 resonance, the scattering objects, and other large semi-major axis resonances, especially the 4:1, 6:1, and 7:1. The multiple capture events and relatively short resonance lifetimes after capture suggest that these objects are captured scattering objects that stick in the 5:1 resonance. These 5:1 resonators may be representative of a temporary population, requiring regular contributions from a source population. We examined the dynamical characteristics (inclination, eccentricity, resonant island, libration amplitude) of the detected objects and their clones in order to provide an empirical model of the orbit structure of the 5:1 resonance. This resonance is dynamically hot and includes primarily symmetric librators. Given our orbit model, the intrinsic population necessary for the detection of these three objects in the 5:1 resonance is 1900(+3300 -1400, 95% confidence) with H_g< 8 and e > 0.5.