Simulations of the Solar System's Early Dynamical Evolution with a Self-Gravitating Planetesimal Disk
  Over the course of last decade, the Nice model has dramatically changed our
view of the solar system's formation and early evolution. Within the context of
this model, a transient period of planet-planet scattering is triggered by
gravitational interactions between the giant planets and a massive primordial
planetesimal disk, leading to a successful reproduction of the solar system's
present-day architecture. In typical realizations of the Nice model,
self-gravity of the planetesimal disk is routinely neglected, as it poses a
computational bottleneck to the calculations. Recent analyses have shown,
however, that a self-gravitating disk can exhibit behavior that is dynamically
distinct, and this disparity may have significant implications for the solar
system's evolutionary path. In this work, we explore this discrepancy utilizing
a large suite of Nice odel simulations with and without a self-gravitating
planetesimal disk, taking advantage of the inherently parallel nature of
graphic processing units. Our simulations demonstrate that self-consistent
modeling of particle interactions does not lead to significantly different
final planetary orbits from those obtained within conventional simulations.
Moreover, self-gravitating calculations show similar planetesimal evolution to
non-self-gravitating numerical experiments after dynamical instability is
triggered, suggesting that the orbital clustering observed in the distant
Kuiper belt is unlikely to have a self-gravitational origin.
