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Title: Evidence for color dichotomy in the primordial Neptunian Trojan population

Journal Article · · Icarus
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  1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  2. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)
  3. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
  4. Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, La Serena (Chile)
  5. Univ. of Portsmouth, Portsmouth (United Kingdom)
  6. Univ. College London, London (United Kingdom)
  7. Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia, LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Observatorio Nacional Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  8. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States); National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Urbana, IL (United States)
  9. Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  10. Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Madrid (Spain)
  11. Steward Observatory, Tucson, AZ (United States); California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  12. Univ. Autonoma de Madrid, Madrid (Spain)
  13. Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  14. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  15. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (United States)
  16. Australian Astronomical Observatory, North Ryde, NSW (Australia)
  17. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  18. Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona (Spain); The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Bellaterra (Barcelona) (Spain)
  19. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  20. Univ. of Sussex, Brighton (United Kingdom)
  21. Univ. of Southampton, Southampton (United Kingdom)
  22. Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (United States)
  23. Univ. Estadual de Campinas, Campinas (Brazil); Lab. Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia, LIneA, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  24. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

In the current model of early Solar System evolution, the stable members of the Jovian and Neptunian Trojan populations were captured into resonance from the leftover reservoir of planetesimals during the outward migration of the giant planets. As a result, both Jovian and Neptunian Trojans share a common origin with the primordial disk population, whose other surviving members constitute today's trans-Neptunian object (TNO) populations. The cold classical TNOs are ultra-red, while the dynamically excited "hot" population of TNOs contains a mixture of ultra-red and blue objects. In contrast, Jovian and Neptunian Trojans are observed to be blue. While the absence of ultra-red Jovian Trojans can be readily explained by the sublimation of volatile material from their surfaces due to the high flux of solar radiation at 5AU, the lack of ultra-red Neptunian Trojans presents both a puzzle and a challenge to formation models. In this work we report the discovery by the Dark Energy Survey (DES) of two new dynamically stable L4 Neptunian Trojans,2013 VX30 and 2014 UU240, both with inclinations i >30 degrees, making them the highest-inclination known stable Neptunian Trojans. We have measured the colors of these and three other dynamically stable Neptunian Trojans previously observed by DES, and find that 2013 VX30 is ultra-red, the first such Neptunian Trojan in its class. As such, 2013 VX30 may be a "missing link" between the Trojan and TNO populations. Using a simulation of the DES TNO detection efficiency, we find that there are 162 +/- 73 Trojans with Hr < 10 at the L4 Lagrange point of Neptune. Moreover, the blue-to-red Neptunian Trojan population ratio should be higher than 17:1. Based on this result, we discuss the possible origin of the ultra-red Neptunian Trojan population and its implications for the formation history of Neptunian Trojans.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Contributing Organization:
DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1489090
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1487044
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1806.09696; FERMILAB-PUB-18-294-AE; DES-2018-0359
Journal Information:
Icarus, Vol. 321, Issue C; ISSN 0019-1035
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 12 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (1)

Absolute colours and phase coefficients of trans-Neptunian objects: correlations and populations journal July 2019

Figures / Tables (9)

Figure 1(p. 5)figure Figure 1
Table 1(p. 6)table Table 1
Figure 2(p. 7)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 9)figure Figure 3
Figure 4(p. 11)figure Figure 4
Table 2(p. 11)table Table 2
Figure 5(p. 12)figure Figure 5
Table 3(p. 13)table Table 3
Figure 6(p. 14)figure Figure 6

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Trojan asteroids
Trans-Neptunian objects
Resonances
Orbital