In Situ Formation of the Cold Classical Kuiper Belt

Abstract Cold classical Kuiper Belt objects (CCKBOs) are considered first-generation planetesimals that formed 42–47 au from the Sun and have remained untouched since. Formation is thought to proceed by clumping of dust particles in protoplanetary disk gas by the streaming instability, followed by gravitational collapse. Previous calculations along these lines are inconsistent with the CCKB’s supposedly pristine nature, because they assume orders-of-magnitude more solid mass than is actually present in the CCKB (a few thousandths of an Earth mass) and do not explain how to expel the >99% extra mass. Here we show from 3D numerical simulations of dust and gas that the total mass in CCKBOs, their characteristic sizes of ∼100 km, and the relative proportion of prograde to retrograde binaries can all be reproduced at the tail end of the solar nebula’s life, when it contained just 2%–5% of its original (minimum-mass) gas. As a solar metallicity’s worth of millimeter-sized solids drains out from 42 to 47 au from nebular headwinds, about 1% of the dust collapses into planetesimals that remain behind in the CCKB region. Binarity is guaranteed from a simple analytic estimate, confirmed numerically, of the spin angular momentum in clumps seeded by the streaming instability. We show that other formation scenarios, including trapping of dust within a gas pressure bump, fail to reproduce the low-mass CCKB. Outstanding problems are identified.