THE CANADA-FRANCE ECLIPTIC PLANE SURVEY-FULL DATA RELEASE: THE ORBITAL STRUCTURE OF THE KUIPER BELT
- Institut UTINAM, CNRS-UMR 6213, Observatoire de Besancon, BP 1615, 25010 Besancon Cedex (France)
- Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, Victoria, BC V9E 2E7 (Canada)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada)
- Planetary Science Directorate, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Space Sciences Building, Ithaca, NY 14853 (United States)
- Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, BP 4229, F-06304 Nice Cedex 4 (France)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2 (Canada)
- Departamento de Fisica, Ingenieria de Sistemas y Teoria de la Senal, E.P.S.A., Universidad de Alicante, Apartado de Correos 99, Alicante 03080 (Spain)
We report the orbital distribution of the trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) discovered during the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS), whose discovery phase ran from early 2003 until early 2007. The follow-up observations started just after the first discoveries and extended until late 2009. We obtained characterized observations of 321 deg{sup 2} of sky to depths in the range g {approx} 23.5-24.4 AB mag. We provide a database of 169 TNOs with high-precision dynamical classification and known discovery efficiency. Using this database, we find that the classical belt is a complex region with sub-structures that go beyond the usual splitting of inner (interior to 3:2 mean-motion resonance [MMR]), main (between 3:2 and 2:1 MMR), and outer (exterior to 2:1 MMR). The main classical belt (a = 40-47 AU) needs to be modeled with at least three components: the 'hot' component with a wide inclination distribution and two 'cold' components (stirred and kernel) with much narrower inclination distributions. The hot component must have a significantly shallower absolute magnitude (H{sub g} ) distribution than the other two components. With 95% confidence, there are 8000{sup +1800}{sub -1600} objects in the main belt with H{sub g} {<=} 8.0, of which 50% are from the hot component, 40% from the stirred component, and 10% from the kernel; the hot component's fraction drops rapidly with increasing H{sub g} . Because of this, the apparent population fractions depend on the depth and ecliptic latitude of a trans-Neptunian survey. The stirred and kernel components are limited to only a portion of the main belt, while we find that the hot component is consistent with a smooth extension throughout the inner, main, and outer regions of the classical belt; in fact, the inner and outer belts are consistent with containing only hot-component objects. The H{sub g} {<=} 8.0 TNO population estimates are 400 for the inner belt and 10,000 for the outer belt to within a factor of two (95% confidence). We show how the CFEPS Survey Simulator can be used to compare a cosmogonic model for the orbital element distribution to the real Kuiper Belt.
- OSTI ID:
- 21582820
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 142, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/142/4/131; ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
THE RESONANT TRANS-NEPTUNIAN POPULATIONS
The Canada–France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS)—High-latitude Component