Large Bodies in the Kuiper Belt

Abstract

We present a survey for bright Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) and Centaurs, conducted at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) 0.9 m telescope with the KPNO 8k Mosaic CCD. The survey imaged 164 sq deg near opposition to a limiting red magnitude of 21.1. Three bright KBOs and one Centaur were found, the brightest KBO having red magnitude 19.7, about 700 km in diameter assuming a dark Centaur-like 4% albedo. We estimate the power-law differential size distribution of the Classical KBOs to have index q = 4.2 (+0.4)(-0.3), with the total number of Classical KBOs with diameters larger than 100 km equal to 4.7 (+1.6)(-1.0) x 10^4. Additionally, we find that if there is a maximum object size in the Kuiper Belt, it must be larger than 1000 km in diameter. By extending our model to larger size bodies, we estimate that 30 (+16)(-12) Charon-sized and 3.2 (+2.8)(-1.7) Pluto-sized Classical KBOs remain undiscovered.

33 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Nov 2001 Astronomical Journal

References in corpus (3)

• Properties of the Trans-Neptunian Belt: Statistics From the CFHT Survey
• Size determination of the Centaur Chariklo from millimeter-wavelength bolometer observations
• Discovery of the Bright Trans-Neptunian Object 2000 EB173

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• Ensemble Properties of Comets in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
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• Dusty Disks around White Dwarfs I: Origin of Debris Disks
• The Edgeworth-Kuiper debris disk
• Mass of the Kuiper Belt
• Inclination Mixing in the Classical Kuiper Belt
• On the detectability of lightcurves of Kuiper Belt objects
• Analysis of the rotational properties of Kuiper belt objects
• Searching for sub-kilometer TNOs using Pan-STARRS video mode lightcurves: Preliminary study and evaluation using engineering data
• Calibration of the angular momenta of the minor planets in the solar system
• The self gravity effect on the orbital stability of Twotinos
• Enhancing Ground-Based Observations of Trans-Neptunian Objects using a Single-Epoch Parallax Measurement from L2
• Assessing the contribution of Centaur impacts to ice giant luminosities