A Search of the Full Six Years of the Dark Energy Survey for Outer Solar System Objects

Bernardinelli, Pedro H and Bernstein, Gary M. and Desai, Shantanu and et al, . (2022) A Search of the Full Six Years of the Dark Energy Survey for Outer Solar System Objects. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 258 (2). pp. 1-20. ISSN 0067-0049

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Abstract

We present a search for outer solar system objects in the 6 yr of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The DES covered a contiguous 5000 deg2 of the southern sky with ≈80,000 3 deg2 exposures in the grizY filters between 2013 and 2019. This search yielded 812 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), one Centaur and one Oort cloud comet, 458 reported here for the first time. We present methodology that builds upon our previous search on the first 4 yr of data. All images were reprocessed with an optimized detection pipeline that leads to an average completeness gain of 0.47 mag per exposure, as well as improved transient catalog production and algorithms for linkage of detections into orbits. All objects were verified by visual inspection and by the "sub-threshold significance,"the signal-to-noise ratio in the stack of images in which its presence is indicated by the orbit, but no detection was reported. This yields a pure catalog complete to r ≈ 23.8 mag and distances 29 < d < 2500 au. The TNOs have minimum (median) of 7 (12) nights' detections and arcs of 1.1 (4.2) yr, and will have grizY magnitudes available in a further publication. We present software for simulating our observational biases for comparisons of models to our detections. Initial inferences demonstrating the catalog's statistical power are: the data are inconsistent with the CFEPS-L7 model for the classical Kuiper Belt; the 16 "extreme"TNOs (a > 150 au, q > 30 au) are consistent with the null hypothesis of azimuthal isotropy; and nonresonant TNOs with q > 38 au, a > 50 au show a significant tendency to be sunward of major mean-motion resonances. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.

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IITH Creators:

IITH Creators	ORCiD
Desai, Shantanu	http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0466-3288

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey.

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Dark Energy Survey (DES), contiguous 5000 deg2 of the southern sky with ≈80,000 3 deg2 exposures , trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).

Subjects:

Physics
Physics > Astronomy Astrophysics

Divisions:

Department of Physics

Depositing User:

. LibTrainee 2021

Date Deposited:

25 Jul 2022 04:02

Last Modified:

25 Jul 2022 04:02