OSSOS XII: Variability studies of 65 Trans-Neptunian Objects using the Hyper Suprime-Cam

Abstract

We present variability measurements and partial light curves of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) from a two-night pilot study using Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the Subaru Telescope (Maunakea, Hawai'i, USA). Subaru's large aperture (8-m) and HSC's large field of view (1.77 square degrees) allow us to obtain measurements of multiple objects with a range of magnitudes in each telescope pointing. We observed 65 objects with m_r = 22.6--25.5 mag in just six pointings, allowing 20--24 visits of each pointing over the two nights. Our sample, all discovered in the recent Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS), span absolute magnitudes H_r = 6.2--10.8 mag and thus investigates smaller objects than previous light curve projects have typically studied. Our data supports the existence of a correlation between light curve amplitude and absolute magnitude seen in other works, but does not support a correlation between amplitude and orbital inclination. Our sample includes a number of objects from different dynamical populations within the trans-Neptunian region, but we do not find any relationship between variability and dynamical class. We were only able to estimate periods for 12 objects in the sample and found that a longer baseline of observations is required for reliable period analysis. We find that 31 objects (just under half of our sample) have variability greater than 0.4 magnitudes during all of the observations; in smaller 1.25 hr, 1.85 hr and 2.45 hr windows, the median variability is 0.13, 0.16 and 0.19 mags, respectively. The fact that variability on this scale is common for small TNOs has important implications for discovery surveys (such as OSSOS or the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) and color measurements.

arXiv comment49 pages, 14 figures, 7 tables

References in corpus (48)

• Astropy: A Community Python Package for Astronomy
• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• The Astropy Project: Building an inclusive, open-science project and status of the v2.0 core package
• LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products
• The Hyper Suprime-Cam SSP Survey: Overview and Survey Design
• The Pan-STARRS1 Photometric System
• THE ORIGIN OF PLUTO'S ORBIT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM BEYOND NEPTUNE
• The Hyper Suprime-Cam Software Pipeline
• Origin of the Structure of the Kuiper Belt during a Dynamical Instability in the Orbits of Uranus and Neptune
• Photometric Calibration of the First 1.5 Years of the Pan-STARRS1 Survey
• The Pan-STARRS 1 Photometric Reference Ladder, Release 12.0
• The Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey - Full Data Release: The orbital structure of the Kuiper belt
• The Absolute Magnitude Distribution of Kuiper Belt Objects
• Neptune's Migration into a Stirred-Up Kuiper Belt: A Detailed Comparison of Simulations to Observations
• A Correlation Between Inclination and Color in the Classical Kuiper Belt
• OSSOS. VII. 800+ trans-Neptunian objects - the complete data release
• Retention of a Primordial Cold Classical Kuiper Belt in an Instability-Driven Model of Solar System Formation
• The formation of Uranus and Neptune among Jupiter and Saturn
• The Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 Test of Surfaces in the Outer Solar System: The Compositional Classes of the Kuiper Belt
• Reopening the TNOs Color Controversy: Centaurs Bimodality and TNOs Unimodality
• A Signature of Planetary Migration: The Origin of Asymmetric Capture in the 2:1 Resonance
• The Outer Solar System Origins Survey: I. Design and First-Quarter Discoveries
• Extreme Kuiper Belt Object 2001 QG298 and the Fraction of Contact Binaries
• Col-OSSOS: Colors of the Interstellar Planetesimal 1I/`Oumuamua
• Short-term variability of a sample of 29 trans-Neptunian objects and Centaurs
• A carefully characterised and tracked Trans-Neptunian survey, the size-distribution of the Plutinos and the number of Neptunian Trojans
• Measuring the Abundance of sub-kilometer sized Kuiper Belt Objects using Stellar Occultations
• Transneptunian objects and Centaurs from light curves
• A Possible Divot in the Size Distribution of the Kuiper Belt's Scattering Objects
• OSSOS. VIII. The Transition Between Two Size Distribution Slopes in the Scattering Disk
• The Color Differences of Kuiper Belt Objects in Resonance with Neptune
• Detectability of Occultation of Stars by Objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud
• Col-OSSOS: z Band Photometry Reveals Three Distinct TNO Surface Types
• Survival of Trojan-Type Companions of Neptune During Primordial Planet Migration
• The TAOS Project: Results From Seven Years of Survey Data
• Rotational properties of the binary and non-binary populations in the Trans-Neptunian belt
• Lightcurves of 32 Large Transneptunian Objects
• A Search for sub-km KBOs with the Method of Serendipitous Stellar Occultations
• The Plutino population: An Abundance of contact binaries
• TRIPPy: Trailed Image Photometry in Python
• A Search for Occultations of Bright Stars by Small Kuiper Belt Objects using Megacam on the MMT
• A Change in the Lightcurve of Kuiper Belt Contact Binary (139775) 2001 QG298
• The Unusual Kuiper Belt Object 2003 SQ317
• Millisecond dip events in the 2007 RXTE/PCA data of Sco X-1 and the TNO size distribution
• Rotational properties of the Haumea family members and candidates: Short-term variability
• 2004 TT357: A potential contact binary in the Trans-Neptunian belt
• A possible dynamically Cold Classical contact binary: (126719) 2002 CC249
• Multi-band Photometry of Trans-Neptunian Objects in the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A search of the full six years of the Dark Energy Survey for outer Solar System objects
• Oort cloud Ecology II: The chronology of the formation of the Oort cloud
• Oort Cloud Formation and Evolution in Star Clusters
• The Surfaces of Small to Mid-Size Plutinos: Evidence of an Association Between Inclination and Surface Type