The Astronomical Journal (Jan 2024)
The DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP). VII. The Strengths of Three Superfast Rotating Main-belt Asteroids from a Preliminary Search of DEEP Data
- Ryder Strauss,
- Andrew McNeill,
- David E. Trilling,
- Francisco Valdes,
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli,
- Cesar Fuentes,
- David W. Gerdes,
- Matthew J. Holman,
- Mario Jurić,
- Hsing Wen Lin,
- Larissa Markwardt,
- Michael Mommert,
- Kevin J. Napier,
- William J. Oldroyd,
- Matthew J. Payne,
- Andrew S. Rivkin,
- Hilke E. Schlichting,
- Scott S. Sheppard,
- Hayden Smotherman,
- Chadwick A. Trujillo,
- Fred C. Adams,
- Colin Orion Chandler
Affiliations
- Ryder Strauss
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University , PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
- Andrew McNeill
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University , PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA; Department of Physics and Astronomy, Bowling Green State University , Bowling Green, OH, 43403, USA
- David E. Trilling
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University , PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
- Francisco Valdes
- ORCiD
- National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory , Tucson, AZ 85726, USA
- Pedro H. Bernardinelli
- ORCiD
- DiRAC Institute and the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , Seattle, USA
- Cesar Fuentes
- ORCiD
- Departamento de Astronomía, Universidad de Chile , Camino del Observatorio 1515, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
- David W. Gerdes
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Matthew J. Holman
- ORCiD
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , 60 Garden Street, MS 51, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Mario Jurić
- ORCiD
- DiRAC Institute and the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , Seattle, USA
- Hsing Wen Lin
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Larissa Markwardt
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Michael Mommert
- ORCiD
- Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences , Stuttgart, Germany
- Kevin J. Napier
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- William J. Oldroyd
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University , PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
- Matthew J. Payne
- ORCiD
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics , 60 Garden Street, MS 51, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Andrew S. Rivkin
- ORCiD
- Applied Physics Lab, Johns Hopkins University , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, Maryland 20723, USA
- Hilke E. Schlichting
- ORCiD
- Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California Los Angeles , 595 Charles E. Young Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
- Scott S. Sheppard
- ORCiD
- Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science , Washington, DC 20015, USA
- Hayden Smotherman
- ORCiD
- DiRAC Institute and the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , Seattle, USA
- Chadwick A. Trujillo
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University , PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA
- Fred C. Adams
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA; Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
- Colin Orion Chandler
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science, Northern Arizona University , PO Box 6010, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA; DiRAC Institute and the Department of Astronomy, University of Washington , Seattle, USA; LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing , 933 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson AZ 85721, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ad7366
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 168,
no. 4
p. 184
Abstract
Superfast rotators (SFRs) are small solar system objects that rotate faster than generally possible for a cohesionless rubble pile. Their rotational characteristics allow us to make inferences about their interior structure and composition. Here, we present the methods and results from a preliminary search for SFRs in the DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP) data set. We find three SFRs from a sample of 686 main-belt asteroids, implying an occurrence rate of ${0.4}_{-0.3}^{+0.1}$ %—a higher incidence rate than has been measured by previous studies. We suggest that this high occurrence rate is due to the small sub-kilometer size regime to which DEEP has access: the objects searched here were as small as ∼500 m. We compute the minimum required cohesive strength for each of these SFRs and discuss the implications of these strengths in the context of likely evolution mechanisms. We find that all three of these SFRs require strengths that are more than that of weak regolith but consistent with many cohesive asteroid strengths reported in the literature. Across the full DEEP data set, we have identified ∼70,000 Main-Belt Asteroids and expect ∼300 SFRs—a result that will be assessed in a future paper.
Keywords
- Main belt asteroids
- Asteroid rotation
- Period search
- Lomb-Scargle periodogram
- Astronomical object identification
- Astrometry
