J/AJ/167/135 The DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP). IV. (Strauss+, 2024)
The DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP).
IV. Constraints on the shape distribution of bright Trans-Neptunian Objects.
Strauss R., Trilling D.E., Bernardinelli P.H., Beach C., Oldroyd W.J.,
Sheppard S.S., Schlichting H.E., Gerdes D.W., Fuentes C., Holman M.J.,
Juric M., Lin H.W., Markwardt L., McNeill A., Mommert M., Napier K.J.,
Payne M.J., Ragozzine D., Rivkin A.S., Smotherman H., Trujillo C.A.,
Adams F.C., Chandler C.O.
<Astron. J., 167, 135 (2024)>
=2024AJ....167..135S 2024AJ....167..135S
ADC_Keywords: Solar system; Minor planets; Photometry, VRI
Keywords: Trans-Neptunian objects ; Surveys ; Kuiper Belt ; Small Solar
System bodies ; Solar system ; Photometry
Abstract:
We present the methods and results from the discovery and photometric
measurement of 26 bright VR>24 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) during
the first year (2019-20) of the DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project
(DEEP). The DEEP survey is an observational TNO survey with wide sky
coverage, high sensitivity, and a fast photometric cadence. We apply a
computer vision technique known as a progressive probabilistic Hough
transform to identify linearly moving transient sources within DEEP
photometric catalogs. After subsequent visual vetting, we provide a
photometric and astrometric catalog of our TNOs. By modeling the
partial lightcurve amplitude distribution of the DEEP TNOs using Monte
Carlo techniques, we find our data to be most consistent with an
average TNO axis ratio b/a<0.5, implying a population dominated by
non-spherical objects. Based on ellipsoidal gravitational stability
arguments, we find our data to be consistent with a TNO population
containing a high fraction of contact binaries or other extremely
non-spherical objects. We also discuss our data as evidence that the
expected binarity fraction of TNOs may be size-dependent.
Description:
The DECam Ecliptic Exploration project (DEEP) is a new observational
survey of the solar system, and is optimized to detect, discover, and
characterize Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). This survey makes use of
the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a wide-field CCD imager mounted on the
4m Victor M. Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American
Observatory (CTIO), Chile.
File Summary:
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ReadMe 80 . This file
fig5.dat 22 1262 The DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP)
trans-Neptunian object (TNO) lightcurves
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See also:
J/A+A/569/A3 : Rotational properties of TNOs (Thirouin+, 2014)
J/AJ/154/241 : Phot. of Kuiper Belt object 2002 CC249 (Thirouin+, 2017)
J/AJ/156/139 : Main belt asteroid shape distrib from GaiaDR2 (Mommert+, 2018)
J/ApJS/236/18 : OSSOS. VII. TNOs complete data release (Bannister+, 2018)
J/ApJS/244/19 : OSSOS. XII. Subaru/HSC obs. of 65 TNOs (Alexandersen+, 2019)
J/AJ/157/120 : TNOs & Centaurs observed within the DES (Banda-Huarca+, 2019)
J/AJ/157/228 : Cold Classical TNOs LCs & rotational props (Thirouin+, 2019)
J/ApJ/883/L21 : LC of the TNO Varuna (Fernandez-Valenzuela+, 2019)
J/ApJS/258/41 : TNOs from the full six years of DES (Bernardinelli+, 2022)
J/A+A/663/A121 : TNO (84922) 2003 VS2 light curve (Vara-Lubiano+, 2022)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: fig5.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 4 I4 --- Seq [1/26] Internal identifier
6- 11 F6.4 h Time [0/4.6] Observation time
13- 17 F5.2 mag VRmag [21.6/24.6] Apparent VR band magnitude
19- 22 F4.2 mag e_VRmag [0.02/0.2] Uncertainty in VRmag
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
References:
Trilling et al. Paper I. 2024AJ....167..132T 2024AJ....167..132T
Trujillo et al. Paper II. 2024AJ....167..133T 2024AJ....167..133T
Bernardinelli et al. Paper III. 2024AJ....167..134B 2024AJ....167..134B
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Coralie Fix [CDS], 04-Jun-2024