Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 2K090

THE INFLUENCE OF DARK MATTER HALOES ON OORT CLOUD COMETS

Higuchi, Arika (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Suzuki, Takayuki (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Ida, Shigeru (Earth-Life Science Institute/Tokyo Institute of Technology)

Abstract:
We have investigated the effect of gravitational perturbations from dark matter haloes on Oort cloud comets, which are the most loosely bounded bodies in the solar system. Oort cloud comets receive perturbations form external bodies: the galactic disk, nearby stars, and giant molecular clouds (GMC). Many authors have studied the effects of these external perturbations. Recent N-body simulations have revealed that dark matter particles form spherical-shape substructure called \"dark matter halo\" (DMH). They predict that DMH have a broad size distribution ranging from galactic size down to Earth-size and its distribution is steeper than that of GMC. We evaluate the strength of the perturbation by DMH using the impulse approximation and compare it with those by GMC and stars.

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