A 2011-2013 survey of trans-Neptunian objects

DOI

The trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) preserve evidence of planet building processes in their orbital and size distributions. While all populations show steep size distributions for large objects, a relative deficit of Neptunian trojans and scattering objects with diameters of D<100km has been detected. We investigated this deficit with a 32 square degree survey, in which we detected 77 TNOs that are brighter than a limiting r-band magnitude of 24.6. Our plutino sample (18 objects in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Neptune) shows a deficit of D99% confidence. Combining our survey with the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey, we perform a detailed analysis of the allowable parameters for the plutino size distribution, including knees and divots. We surmise the existence of 9000+/-3000 plutinos with an absolute magnitude of H_r_{<=}8.66 and 37000_-10000_^+12000^ with H_r_{<=}10.0 (95% confidence). Our survey also discovered one temporary Uranian trojan, one temporary Neptunian trojan, and one stable Neptunian trojan, for which we estimate populations of 110_-100_^+500^, 210_-200_^+900^, and 150_-140_^+600^ with H_r_{<=}10.0, respectively. All three populations are thus less numerous than the main belt asteroids (592 asteroids with H_r_{<=}10.0). With such population sizes, the temporary Neptunian trojans cannot be previously stable trojans diffusing out of the resonance now; they must be recently captured Centaurs or scattering objects. As the bias against the detection of objects grows with larger semimajor axes, our discovery of three 3:1 resonators and one 4:1 resonator adds to the growing evidence that the high-order resonances are far more populated than is typically predicted.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.51520111
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/152/111
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/AJ/152/111
Related Identifier https://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/AJ/152/111
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/152/111
Provenance
Creator Alexandersen M.; Gladman B.; Kavelaars J.J.; Petit J.-M.; Gwyn S.D.J.,Shankman C.J.; Pike R.E.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2017
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Solar System Astronomy