A revised asteroid polarization-albedo relationship using WISE/NEOWISE data

Abstract

We present a reanalysis of the relationship between asteroid albedo and polarization properties using the albedos derived from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. We find that the function that best describes this relation is a three-dimensional linear fit in the space of log(albedo)-log(polarization slope)-log(minimum polarization). When projected to two dimensions the parameters of the fit are consistent with those found in previous work. We also define p* as the quantity of maximal polarization variation when compared with albedo and present the best fitting albedo-p* relation. Some asteroid taxonomic types stand out in this three-dimensional space, notably the E, B, and M Tholen types, while others cluster in clumps coincident with the S- and C-complex bodies. We note that both low albedo and small (D<30 km) asteroids are under-represented in the polarimetric sample, and we encourage future polarimetric surveys to focus on these bodies.

16 pages, Accepted to ApJ

References in corpus (3)

• The Size Distributions of Asteroid Families in the SDSS Moving Object Catalog 4
• Polarimetric survey of asteroids with the Asiago telescope
• Polarization of asteroid (387) Aquitania: the newest member of a class of large inversion angle asteroids

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Detection of Semi-Major Axis Drifts in 54 Near-Earth Asteroids: New Measurements of the Yarkovsky Effect
• The phase-polarization curve of asteroid (3200) Phaethon
• Polarimetric Study of Near-Earth Asteroid (1566) Icarus
• Asteroid thermal modeling in the presence of reflected sunlight with an application to WISE/NEOWISE observational data
• Inversion angle of phase-polarization curve of near-Earth asteroid (3200) Phaethon
• Optical and Near-Infrared Polarimetry for a Highly Dormant Comet 209P/LINEAR
• Significantly high polarization degree of the very low-albedo asteroid (152679) 1998 KU${}_2$
• A polarimetric study of asteroids in comet-like orbits
• Physical properties of the slow-rotating near-Earth asteroid (2059) Baboquivari from one apparition