A Derivation of the Luminosity Function of the Kuiper Belt from a Broken Power-Law Size Distribution

Abstract

We have derived a model of the Kuiper belt luminosity function exhibited by a broken power-law size distribution. This model allows direct comparison of the observed luminosity function to the underlying size distribution. We discuss the importance of the radial distribution model in determining the break diameter. We determine a best-fit break-diameter of the Kuiper belt size-distribution of 30<Db<90 km via a maximum-likelihood fit of our model to the observed luminosity function. We also confirm that the observed luminosity function for m(R) ~ 21-28 is consistent with a broken power-law size distribution, and exhibits a break at m(R)=26.0+0.7-1.8.

Accepted by Icarus 25 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Steady-State Size Distributions for Collisional Populations: Analytical Solution with Size-Dependent Strength
• The Kuiper Belt Luminosity Function from m(R)=21 to 26
• Physical Properties of Kuiper Belt and Centaur Objects: Constraints from Spitzer Space Telescope

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