The origin and formation of the inner Oort cloud

Supervisor: Mgr. Marián Jakubík, PhD. (mjakubik@astro.sk)
Affiliation: Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Tatranská Lomnica, 059 60 Vysoké Tatry
Syllabus
Focus of the research: The origin and formation of the Oort cloud, spherically symmetric cloud of comets orbiting the Sun in orbits with semi-major axis from 2000AU to 200000AU, are the focus of our research. The Oort cloud can be divided into 2 parts – inner and outer Oort cloud. There are models, which describe scenarios of the origin and formation of Oort cloud resulting from very recent observations. So far, the most suitable are models from time-period when the Sun was located in its birth star cluster. These models of the formation of Oort cloud (both parts) can realistically describe many details, which we can obtain from observations of comets and trans-neptunian objects.
Objectives: The main aim of this work is detailed description of the origin and formation of inner Oort cloud with main emphasis on models describing the formation of the Oort cloud in its birth star cluster. In more detail, we will solve open questions of this process using numerical simulations with respect of recent observations. Among answers on various open questions, we will find the solution of particular problem related to high number of objects (in the inner Oort cloud) revolving around Sun on retrograde orbits resulting from previous numerical simulations. However, this fact does not result from the analysis of recent available observations of inner Oort cloud objects.
Requirements:
programming skills (python, fortran), English language
Research field:
The dynamical evolution of the small bodies of the Solar system