CHIMERA Occultation Constraints on the Abundance of Kilometer-scale Kuiper Belt Objects
In: The Astronomical Journal, Jg. 166 (2023), Heft 6, S. 242-242
Online
academicJournal
Zugriff:
Occultations provide indirect sensitivity to the number density of small Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) too faint to directly detect telescopically. We present results from the Caltech HI-speed Multicolor camERA (CHIMERA) survey with the Palomar Hale Telescope, which monitored stars over the central $5^{\prime} \times 5^{\prime} $ of the M22 globular cluster along the ecliptic plane for serendipitous occultations by kilometer-scale KBOs over 63 hr across 24 nights at a 33 Hz frame rate simultaneously in $i^{\prime} $ and $g^{\prime} $ . We adapted dense-field photometry and occultation template fitting techniques to this data set, finding a 95% confidence upper limit on the occultation rate, corresponding to an ecliptic sky density of ≲10 ^7 deg ^−2 of >1 km diameter classical KBOs. We discuss a few of the occultation-like light curve signatures at the edge of the sensitivity limit responsible for setting the upper bounds, and their likely nonviability as true occultations.
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CHIMERA Occultation Constraints on the Abundance of Kilometer-scale Kuiper Belt Objects
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Zhang, Qicheng ; Hallinan, Gregg W. ; Saini, Navtej S. ; Schlichting, Hilke E. ; Harding, Leon K. ; Milburn, Jennifer W. |
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Zeitschrift: | The Astronomical Journal, Jg. 166 (2023), Heft 6, S. 242-242 |
Veröffentlichung: | IOP Publishing, 2023 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
ISSN: | 1538-3881 (print) |
DOI: | 10.3847/1538-3881/ad03e3 |
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