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The outer solar system exhibits an anomalous pattern of orbital clustering,characterized by an approximate alignment of the apsidal lines and angularmomentum vectors of distant, long-term stable Kuiper belt objects. Oneexplanation for this dynamical confinement is the existence of a yet-undetectedplanetary-mass object, "Planet Nine (P9)". Previous work has shown thattrans-Neptunian objects, which originate within the scattered disk populationof the Kuiper belt, can be corralled into orbital alignment by Planet Nine'sgravity over ~Gyr timescales, and characteristic P9 parameters have beenderived by matching the properties of a synthetic Kuiper belt generated withinnumerical simulations to the available observational data. In this work, weshow that an additional dynamical process is in play within the framework ofthe Planet Nine hypothesis, and demonstrate that P9-induced dynamical evolutionfacilitates orbital variations within the otherwise dynamically frozen innerOort cloud. As a result of this evolution, inner Oort cloud bodies can acquireorbits characteristic of the distant scattered disk, implying that if PlanetNine exists, the observed census of long-period trans-Neptunian objects iscomprised of a mixture of Oort cloud and Kuiper belt objects. Our simulationsfurther show that although inward-injected inner Oort cloud objects exhibitP9-driven orbital confinement, the degree of clustering is weaker than that ofobjects originating within the Kuiper belt. Cumulatively, our results suggestthat a more eccentric Planet Nine is likely necessary to explain the data thanpreviously thought.

Injection of Inner Oort Cloud Objects Into the Distant Kuiper Belt by Planet Nine