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arXiv 0902.4687astro-ph.EP
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活跃的半人马

The Active Centaurs

David Jewitt

摘要:

半人马座是最近从柯伊伯带逃脱出来的,它们注定要么在太阳系炎热的内部区域遭遇炽热的遗忘,要么被巨行星的引力散射弹射到星际介质。动态演化的半人马座彗星,当被木星捕获并足够接近太阳近地表水冰升华时,通常被标记为“短周期”(特别是彗星家族)彗星。值得注意的是,一些半人马座行星即使在远离木星的轨道时也表现出彗星般的活动,这表明质量损失是由水冰升华以外的过程驱动的。我们观察了23个半人马座的样本,发现9个是活跃的,质量损失率从几公斤/秒到几吨/秒不等。作为一个整体,我们发现我们样本中的“活跃半人马座”的近日点小于不活跃的半人马座(中位数5.9 AU对8.7 AU),并且小于所有已知半人马座计算的近日点距离中位数(12.4 AU)。这表明它们的活动是热驱动的。对于活跃的半人马座的质量损失的起源有几种可能性。我们认为,半人马座的活动可能是由无定形冰转化为晶体形式,伴随着释放出被困的气体,包括一氧化碳。通过施加的条件,结晶时间短于轨道周期时,我们发现一个定性匹配的近日点分布的活动半人马座,并得出结论,数据是一致的假设,半人马座包含无定形冰。

英文摘要:

The Centaurs are recent escapees from the Kuiper belt that are destined either to meet fiery oblivion in the hot inner regions of the Solar system or to be ejected to the interstellar medium by gravitational scattering from the giant planets. Dynamically evolved Centaurs, when captured by Jupiter and close enough to the Sun for near-surface water ice to sublimate, are conventionally labeled as "short-period" (specifically, Jupiter-family) comets. Remarkably, some Centaurs show comet-like activity even when far beyond the orbit of Jupiter, suggesting mass-loss driven by a process other than the sublimation of water ice. We observed a sample of 23 Centaurs and found nine to be active, with mass-loss rates measured from several kg/s to several tonnes/s. Considered as a group, we find that the "active Centaurs" in our sample have perihelia smaller than the inactive Centaurs (median 5.9 AU vs. 8.7 AU), and smaller than the median perihelion distance computed for all known Centaurs (12.4 AU). This suggests that their activity is thermally driven. There are several possibilities for the origin of the mass-loss from the active Centaurs. We consider the possibility that activity in the Centaurs is triggered by the conversion of amorphous ice into the crystalline form accompanied by the release of trapped gases, including carbon monoxide. By imposing the condition that crystallization should occur when the crystallization time is shorter than the orbital period we find a qualitative match to the perihelion distribution of the active Centaurs and conclude that the data are consistent with the hypothesis that the Centaurs contain amorphous ice.

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