A SUBARU PENCIL-BEAM SEARCH FOR mR ∼ 27 TRANS-NEPTUNIAN BODIES

We present the results of an archival search for trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) in an ecliptic field observed with Subaru in 2002. The depth of the search allowed us to find 20 new TNOs with magnitudes between R = 24 and 27. We fit a double power-law model to the data; the most likely values for the bright and faint power-law exponents are α1 = 0.73+0.08 –0.09 and α2 = 0.20+0.12 –0.14; the differential number density at R = 23 is σ23 = 1.46+0.14 –0.12 and the break magnitude is R eq = 25.0+0.8 –0.6. This is the most precise measurement of the break in the TNO luminosity function to date. The break in the size distribution corresponds to a diameter of D = 90 ± 30 km assuming a 4% albedo.

[1]  J. Burns,et al.  Discovery of five irregular moons of Neptune , 2004, Nature.

[2]  E. Bertin,et al.  SExtractor: Software for source extraction , 1996 .

[3]  Dale P. Cruikshank,et al.  The solar system beyond Neptune , 2008 .

[4]  J. J. Kavelaars,et al.  A SEARCH FOR SUB-km KUIPER BELT OBJECTS WITH THE METHOD OF SERENDIPITOUS STELLAR OCCULTATIONS , 2008, 0801.2969.

[5]  Scott J. Kenyon,et al.  Accretion in the Early Kuiper Belt II. Fragmentation , 1999 .

[6]  Chadwick A. Trujillo,et al.  Properties of the Trans-Neptunian Belt: Statistics from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Survey , 2001 .

[7]  H.-C. Lin,et al.  First Results from the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) , 2008 .

[8]  T. Nakamura,et al.  Subaru Main Belt Asteroid Survey (SMBAS)—Size and color distributions of small main-belt asteroids , 2007 .

[9]  Joel Wm. Parker,et al.  THE CANADA–FRANCE ECLIPTIC PLANE SURVEY—L3 DATA RELEASE: THE ORBITAL STRUCTURE OF THE KUIPER BELT , 2009, 1108.4836.

[10]  J. Munn,et al.  The USNO-B Catalog , 2002, astro-ph/0210694.

[11]  S. Kenyon,et al.  The Size Distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects , 2004, astro-ph/0406556.

[12]  Cesar I. Fuentes,et al.  A SUBARU ARCHIVAL SEARCH FOR FAINT TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECTS , 2008 .

[13]  D. Davis,et al.  Formation and Collisional Evolution of Kuiper Belt Objects , 2007, 0704.0259.

[14]  A. Doressoundiram,et al.  The CFEPS Kuiper Belt Survey: Strategy and presurvey results , 2006 .

[15]  Wm. A. Wheaton,et al.  2MASS All Sky Catalog of point sources. , 2003 .

[16]  C. Alard.  Image subtraction using a space-varying kernel , 2000 .

[17]  M. E. Brown,et al.  The Size Distribution of Trans-Neptunian Bodies* , 2004 .

[18]  Re'em Sari,et al.  Shaping the Kuiper belt size distribution by shattering large but strengthless bodies , 2005 .

[19]  Alessandro Morbidelli,et al.  The Structure of the Kuiper Belt: Size Distribution and Radial Extent , 2001 .

[20]  David Trilling,et al.  Physical Properties of Kuiper Belt and Centaur Objects: Constraints from the Spitzer Space Telescope , 2007 .

[21]  S. Okamura,et al.  Subaru Prime Focus Camera — Suprime-Cam , 2002, astro-ph/0211006.

[22]  The Edge of the Solar System , 2000, astro-ph/0011037.

[23]  David E. Trilling,et al.  The Deep Ecliptic Survey: A Search for Kuiper Belt Objects and Centaurs. II. Dynamical Classification, the Kuiper Belt Plane, and the Core Population , 2005 .

[24]  T. Grav,et al.  The discovery of faint irregular satellites of Uranus , 2004 .

[25]  G. Bernstein,et al.  Orbit Fitting and Uncertainties for Kuiper Belt Objects , 2000 .

[26]  Brett James Gladman,et al.  A highly automated moving object detection package , 2004 .