The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (Jan 2023)
Photometry of Outer Solar System Objects from the Dark Energy Survey. I. Photometric Methods, Light-curve Distributions, and Trans-Neptunian Binaries
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli,
- Gary M. Bernstein,
- Nicholas Jindal,
- T. M. C. Abbott,
- M. Aguena,
- O. Alves,
- F. Andrade-Oliveira,
- J. Annis,
- D. Bacon,
- E. Bertin,
- D. Brooks,
- D. L. Burke,
- A. Carnero Rosell,
- M. Carrasco Kind,
- J. Carretero,
- L. N. da Costa,
- M. E. S. Pereira,
- T. M. Davis,
- S. Desai,
- H. T. Diehl,
- P. Doel,
- S. Everett,
- I. Ferrero,
- D. Friedel,
- J. Frieman,
- J. García-Bellido,
- G. Giannini,
- D. Gruen,
- K. Herner,
- S. R. Hinton,
- D. L. Hollowood,
- K. Honscheid,
- D. J. James,
- K. Kuehn,
- J. L. Marshall,
- J. Mena-Fernández,
- F. Menanteau,
- R. Miquel,
- R. L. C. Ogando,
- A. Palmese,
- A. Pieres,
- A. A. Plazas Malagón,
- M. Raveri,
- E. Sanchez,
- I. Sevilla-Noarbe,
- M. Smith,
- E. Suchyta,
- M. E. C. Swanson,
- G. Tarle,
- C. To,
- A. R. Walker,
- P. Wiseman,
- Y. Zhang,
- (The DES Collaboration)
Affiliations
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli
- ORCiD
- DiRAC Institute, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , 3910 15th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98195, USA ; [email protected]
- Gary M. Bernstein
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA ; [email protected]
- Nicholas Jindal
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA ; [email protected]; Department of Physics, Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- T. M. C. Abbott
- ORCiD
- Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile
- M. Aguena
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia —LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- O. Alves
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- F. Andrade-Oliveira
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- J. Annis
- ORCiD
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- D. Bacon
- ORCiD
- Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation, University of Portsmouth , Portsmouth, PO1 3FX, UK
- E. Bertin
- ORCiD
- CNRS, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris , F-75014, Paris, France; Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7095, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris , F-75014, Paris, France
- D. Brooks
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London , Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
- D. L. Burke
- ORCiD
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology , P.O. Box 2450, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory , Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
- A. Carnero Rosell
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia —LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil; Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias , E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Universidad de La Laguna , Dpto. Astrofísica, E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- M. Carrasco Kind
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications , 1205 West Clark Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- J. Carretero
- ORCiD
- Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology , Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain
- L. N. da Costa
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia —LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- M. E. S. Pereira
- ORCiD
- Hamburger Sternwarte, Universität Hamburg , Gojenbergsweg 112, D-21029 Hamburg, Germany
- T. M. Davis
- ORCiD
- School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland , Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
- S. Desai
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, IIT Hyderabad , Kandi, Telangana 502285, India
- H. T. Diehl
- ORCiD
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- P. Doel
- Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London , Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK
- S. Everett
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
- I. Ferrero
- ORCiD
- Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics , University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1029, Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway
- D. Friedel
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications , 1205 West Clark Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- J. Frieman
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- J. García-Bellido
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Fisica Teorica UAM/CSIC, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid , E-28049 Madrid, Spain
- G. Giannini
- Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology , Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain
- D. Gruen
- University Observatory, Faculty of Physics, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität , Scheinerstr. 1, D-81679 Munich, Germany
- K. Herner
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , P.O. Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510, USA
- S. R. Hinton
- ORCiD
- School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland , Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
- D. L. Hollowood
- ORCiD
- Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics , Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
- K. Honscheid
- Department of Physics, Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- D. J. James
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- K. Kuehn
- ORCiD
- Australian Astronomical Optics, Macquarie University , North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australia; Lowell Observatory , 1400 Mars Hill Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA
- J. L. Marshall
- George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX 77843, USA
- J. Mena-Fernández
- ORCiD
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) , Madrid, Spain
- F. Menanteau
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysical Surveys, National Center for Supercomputing Applications , 1205 West Clark Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- R. Miquel
- ORCiD
- Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology , Campus UAB, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats , E-08010 Barcelona, Spain
- R. L. C. Ogando
- ORCiD
- Observatório Nacional , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- A. Palmese
- Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15312, USA
- A. Pieres
- ORCiD
- Laboratório Interinstitucional de e-Astronomia —LIneA, Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil; Observatório Nacional , Rua Gal. José Cristino 77, Rio de Janeiro, RJ—20921-400, Brazil
- A. A. Plazas Malagón
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Peyton Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- M. Raveri
- Department of Physics, University of Genova and INFN , Via Dodecaneso 33, I-16146, Genova, Italy
- E. Sanchez
- ORCiD
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) , Madrid, Spain
- I. Sevilla-Noarbe
- Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT) , Madrid, Spain
- M. Smith
- ORCiD
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
- E. Suchyta
- ORCiD
- Computer Science and Mathematics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory , Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA
- M. E. C. Swanson
- ORCiD
- Independent Researcher
- G. Tarle
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- C. To
- ORCiD
- Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics, The Ohio State University , Columbus, OH 43210, USA
- A. R. Walker
- ORCiD
- Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile
- P. Wiseman
- School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton , Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
- Y. Zhang
- ORCiD
- Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile; Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- (The DES Collaboration)
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/acf6bf
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 269,
no. 1
p. 18
Abstract
We report the methods of and initial scientific inferences from the extraction of precision photometric information for the >800 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) discovered in the images of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). Scene-modeling photometry is used to obtain shot-noise-limited flux measures for each exposure of each TNO, with background sources subtracted. Comparison of double-source fits to the pixel data with single-source fits are used to identify and characterize two binary TNO systems. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo method samples the joint likelihood of the intrinsic colors of each source as well as the amplitude of its flux variation, given the time series of multiband flux measurements and their uncertainties. A catalog of these colors and light-curve amplitudes A is included with this publication. We show how to assign a likelihood to the distribution q ( A ) of light-curve amplitudes in any subpopulation. Using this method, we find decisive evidence (i.e., evidence ratio <0.01) that cold classical (CC) TNOs with absolute magnitude 6 < H _r < 8.2 are more variable than the hot classical (HC) population of the same H _r , reinforcing theories that the former form in situ and the latter arise from a different physical population. Resonant and scattering TNOs in this H _r range have variability consistent with either the HCs or CCs. DES TNOs with H _r < 6 are seen to be decisively less variable than higher- H _r members of any dynamical group, as expected. More surprising is that detached TNOs are decisively less variable than scattering TNOs, which requires them to have distinct source regions or some subsequent differential processing.
Keywords
