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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
The evolutionary paths connecting cometary reservoirs in the outer solar system and the population of periodic comets involve stellar and planetary perturbations. Close planetary encounters play a special role, making the dynamical evolution slow or fast depending on the orbital elements of the comet at various stages of the process. In this paper numerical work done in the last decades on this subject, using both real and fictitious objects, is reviewed.