The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Millimeter Observations of a Population of Asteroids or: ACTeroids
- John Orlowski-Scherer,
- Ricco C. Venterea,
- Nicholas Battaglia,
- Sigurd Naess,
- Tanay Bhandarkar,
- Emily Biermann,
- Erminia Calabrese,
- Mark Devlin,
- Jo Dunkley,
- Carlos Hervías-Caimapo,
- Patricio A. Gallardo,
- Matt Hilton,
- Adam D. Hincks,
- Kenda Knowles,
- Yaqiong Li,
- Jeffrey J McMahon,
- Michael D. Niemack,
- Lyman A. Page,
- Bruce Partridge,
- Maria Salatino,
- Jonathan Sievers,
- Cristóbal Sifón,
- Suzanne Staggs,
- Alexander van Engelen,
- Cristian Vargas,
- Eve M. Vavagiakis,
- Edward J. Wollack
Affiliations
- John Orlowski-Scherer
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, McGill University , 3600 Rue University, Montréal, QC, H3A 2T8, Canada
- Ricco C. Venterea
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
- Nicholas Battaglia
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
- Sigurd Naess
- ORCiD
- Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo , Norway
- Tanay Bhandarkar
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Emily Biermann
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
- Erminia Calabrese
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University , The Parade, Cardiff, Wales CF24 3AA, UK
- Mark Devlin
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , 209 South 33rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
- Jo Dunkley
- ORCiD
- Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA; Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Peyton Hall, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Carlos Hervías-Caimapo
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astrofísica and Centro de Astro-Ingeniería, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile , Avenida Vicuña Mackenna 4860, 7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile
- Patricio A. Gallardo
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- Matt Hilton
- ORCiD
- Wits Centre for Astrophysics, School of Physics, University of the Witwatersrand , Private Bag 3, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa; Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal , Westville Campus, Durban 4041, South Africa
- Adam D. Hincks
- ORCiD
- David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto , 50 Saint George Street, Toronto ON M5S 3H4, Canada; Specola Vaticana (Vatican Observatory) , V-00120, Vatican City State
- Kenda Knowles
- ORCiD
- Centre for Radio Astronomy Techniques and Technologies, Department of Physics and Electronics, Rhodes University , P.O. Box 94, Makhanda 6140, South Africa; South African Radio Astronomy Observatory , 2 Fir Street, Observatory 7925, South Africa
- Yaqiong Li
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
- Jeffrey J McMahon
- Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Department of Physics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA; Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- Michael D. Niemack
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA; Department of Physics, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
- Lyman A. Page
- ORCiD
- Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Bruce Partridge
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Haverford College , 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041, USA
- Maria Salatino
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Stanford University , Stanford, 94305 CA, USA; Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology , Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- Jonathan Sievers
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, McGill University , 3600 Rue University, Montréal, QC, H3A 2T8, Canada
- Cristóbal Sifón
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso , Casilla 4059, Valparaíso, Chile
- Suzanne Staggs
- ORCiD
- Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Jadwin Hall, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Alexander van Engelen
- ORCiD
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University , Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
- Cristian Vargas
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astrofísica and Centro de Astro-Ingeniería, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile , Avenida Vicuña Mackenna 4860, 7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile
- Eve M. Vavagiakis
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
- Edward J. Wollack
- ORCiD
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center , 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad21fe
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 964,
no. 2
p. 138
Abstract
We present fluxes and light curves for a population of asteroids at millimeter wavelengths, detected by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) over 18,000 deg ^2 of the sky using data from 2017 to 2021. We utilize high cadence maps, which can be used in searching for moving objects such as asteroids and trans-Neptunian Objects, as well as for studying transients. We detect 170 asteroids with a signal-to-noise of at least 5 in at least one of the ACT observing bands, which are centered near 90, 150, and 220 GHz. For each asteroid, we compare the ACT measured flux to predicted fluxes from the near-Earth asteroid thermal model fit to WISE data. We confirm previous results that detected a deficit of flux at millimeter wavelengths. Moreover, we report a spectral characteristic to this deficit, such that the flux is relatively lower at 150 and 220 GHz than at 90 GHz. Additionally, we find that the deficit in flux is greater for S-type asteroids than for C-type.
Keywords
