An automated occultation network for gravitational mapping of the trans-neptunian solar system

Abstract

We explore the potential of an array of O(100) small fixed telescopes, aligned along a meridian and automated to measure millions of occultations of Gaia stars by minor planets, to constrain gravitational signatures from a "Planet X" mass in the outer solar system. The accuracy of center-of-mass tracking for the occulters is limited by photon noise, uncertainties in asteroid shapes, and Gaia's astrometry of the occulted stars. Using both parametric calculations and survey simulations, we assess the total information obtainable from occultation measurements of main-belt asteroids (MBAs), Jovian Trojans and trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). We find that MBAs are the optimal target population due to their higher occultation rates and abundance of objects above LSST detection thresholds. A 10-year survey of occultations by MBAs and Trojans using an array of 200 40 cm telescopes at 5 km separation would achieve $5\sigma$ sensitivity to the gravitational tidal field of a $5M_{\oplus }$ Planet X at 800 AU for $>90\%$ of potential sky locations. This configuration corresponds to an initial cost of $\approx$15 million. While the occultation survey's sensitivity to tidal forces improves rapidly with increasing number of telescopes, sensitivity to a Planet X becomes limited by degeneracy with the uncertain masses of large moonless TNOs. The 200-telescope survey would additionally detect $\approx$1800 TNO occultations, providing detailed shape, size, and albedo information. The survey would also measure the Yarkovski effect on many individual MBAs, measure the masses of many asteroids involved in mutual gravitational deflections, and enable better searches for primordial black holes and departures from General Relativity.

arXiv comment30 pages, 10 figures, 1 table

References in corpus (18)

• Gaia Data Release 2: first stellar parameters from Apsis
• Evidence for a Distant Giant Planet in the Solar System
• The Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey - Full Data Release: The orbital structure of the Kuiper belt
• REBOUNDx: A Library for Adding Conservative and Dissipative Forces to Otherwise Symplectic N-body Integrations
• The Resonant Transneptunian Populations
• Observational constraints on the orbit and location of Planet Nine in the outer solar system
• New Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects: Towards a Super-Earth in the Outer Solar System
• Detectability of Occultation of Stars by Objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud
• Albedos of Small Jovian Trojans
• Size and Shape Constraints of (486958) Arrokoth from Stellar Occultations
• Second-order variational equations for N-body simulations
• Close encounters of the primordial kind: a new observable for primordial black holes as dark matter
• Recipes for bolometric corrections and Gaia luminosities of B-type stars: Application to an asteroseismic sample
• Stellar occultations by Trans-Neptunian Objects
• Can the gravitational effect of Planet X be detected in current-era tracking of the known major and minor planets?
• Dark Energy Survey's Observation Strategy, Tactics, and Exposure Scheduler
• Using neural networks to model Main Belt Asteroid albedos as a function of their proper orbital elements
• The Case for a Large-Scale Occultation Network