A SEARCH FOR OCCULTATIONS OF BRIGHT STARS BY SMALL KUIPER BELT OBJECTS USING MEGACAM ON THE MMT
- 7 July 2009
- journal article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astronomical Journal
- Vol. 138 (2), 568-578
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-6256/138/2/568
Abstract
We conducted a search for occultations of bright stars by Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) to estimate the density of sub-km KBOs in the sky. We report here the first results of this occultation survey of the outer solar system conducted in June 2007 and June/July 2008 at the MMT Observatory using Megacam, the large MMT optical imager. We used Megacam in a novel shutterless continuous--readout mode to achieve high precision photometry at 200 Hz. We present an analysis of 220 star hours at signal-to-noise ratio of 25 or greater. The survey efficiency is greater than 10% for occultations by KBOs of diameter d>=0.7 km, and we report no detections in our dataset. We set a new 95% confidence level upper limit for the surface density \Sigma_N(d) of KBOs larger than 1 km: \Sigma_N(d>=1 km) <= 2.0e8 deg^-2, and for KBOs larger than 0.7 km \Sigma_N(d>= 0.7 km) <= 4.8e8 deg^-2.Keywords
Other Versions
This publication has 38 references indexed in Scilit:
- KUIPER BELT OBJECT OCCULTATIONS: EXPECTED RATES, FALSE POSITIVES, AND SURVEY DESIGNThe Astronomical Journal, 2009
- A SEARCH FOR SUB-km KUIPER BELT OBJECTS WITH THE METHOD OF SERENDIPITOUS STELLAR OCCULTATIONSThe Astronomical Journal, 2008
- What Can the Cosmic Microwave Background Tell Us about the Outer Solar System?The Astrophysical Journal, 2007
- Millisecond dips in the RXTE/PCA light curve of Sco X-1 and trans-Neptunian object occultationMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2007
- The Size Distribution of Trans-Neptunian BodiesThe Astronomical Journal, 2004
- The Inclination Distribution of the Kuiper BeltThe Astronomical Journal, 2001
- Atmospheric Intensity Scintillation of Stars. III. Effects for Different Telescope AperturesPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1998
- Atmospheric Intensity Scintillation of Stars, I. Statistical Distributions and Temporal PropertiesPublications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1997
- SExtractor: Software for source extractionAstronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series, 1996
- Can ‘invisible’ bodies be observed in the Solar System?Nature, 1976