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The Luminosity Function of the Hot and Cold Kuiper belt Populations | | Wesley C. Fraser
; Michael E. Brown
; Megan E. Schwamb
; | | Date: |
5 Aug 2010 | | Abstract: | Abridged. We have performed an ecliptic survey of the Kuiper belt, with an
areal coverage of 8.9 square degrees to a 50% limiting magnitude of r’=24.7,
and have detected 88 Kuiper belt objects, roughly half of which received
follow-up one to two months after detection. Using this survey data alone, we
have measured the luminosity function of the Kuiper belt, thus avoiding any
biases that might come from the inclusion of other observations. We have found
that the Cold population defined as having inclinations less than 5 degrees has
a luminosity function slope alpha=0.82+-0.23, and is different from the Hot
population, which has inclinations greater than 5 degrees and a luminosity
function slope alpha=0.35+-0.21. As well, we have found that those objects
closer than 38 AU have virtually the same luminosity function slope as the Hot
population. This result, along with similar findings of past surveys
demonstrates that the dynamically cold Kuiper belt objects likely have a steep
size distribution, and are unique from all of the excited populations which
have much shallower distributions. This suggests that the dynamically excited
population underwent a different accretion history and achieved a more evolved
state of accretion than the cold population. As well, we discuss the
similarities of the Cold and Hot populations with the size distributions of
other planetesimal populations. We find that while the Jupiter family comets
and the scattered disk exhibit similar size distributions, a power-law
extrapolation to small sizes for the scattered disk cannot account for the
observed influx of comets. As well, we have found that the Jupiter Trojan and
Hot populations cannot have originated from the same parent popuation, a result
that is difficult to reconcile with scattering models similar to the NICE
model. | | Source: | arXiv, 1008.1058 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
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