OSSOS. VII. 800+ trans-Neptunian objects - the complete data release
Abstract
The Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS), a wide-field imaging program in 2013-2017 with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, surveyed 155 deg of sky to depths of -25.2. We present 838 outer Solar System discoveries that are entirely free of ephemeris bias. This increases the inventory of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with accurately known orbits by nearly 50%. Each minor planet has 20-60 Gaia/Pan-STARRS-calibrated astrometric measurements made over 2-5 oppositions, which allows accurate classification of their orbits within the trans-Neptunian dynamical populations. The populations orbiting in mean-motion resonance with Neptune are key to understanding Neptune's early migration. Our 313 resonant TNOs, including 132 plutinos, triple the available characterized sample and include new occupancy of distant resonances out to semi-major axis au. OSSOS doubles the known population of the non-resonant Kuiper belt, providing 436 TNOs in this region, all with exceptionally high-quality orbits of uncertainty ; they show the belt exists from au, with a lower perihelion bound of au. We confirm the presence of a concentrated low-inclination au "kernel" population and a dynamically cold population extending beyond the 2:1 resonance. We finely quantify the survey's observational biases. Our survey simulator provides a straightforward way to impose these biases on models of the trans-Neptunian orbit distributions, allowing statistical comparison to the discoveries. The OSSOS TNOs, unprecedented in their orbital precision for the size of the sample, are ideal for testing concepts of the history of giant planet migration in the Solar System.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1805.11740,
title = {OSSOS. VII. 800+ trans-Neptunian objects - the complete data release},
author = {Michele T. Bannister and Brett J. Gladman and J. J. Kavelaars and Jean-Marc Petit and Kathryn Volk and Ying-Tung Chen and Mike Alexandersen and Stephen D. J. Gwyn and Megan E. Schwamb and Edward Ashton and Susan D. Benecchi and Nahuel Cabral and Rebekah I. Dawson and Audrey Delsanti and Wesley C. Fraser and Mikael Granvik and Sarah Greenstreet and Aurélie Guilbert-Lepoutre and Wing-Huen Ip and Marian Jakubik and R. Lynne Jones and Nathan A. Kaib and Pedro Lacerda and Christa Van Laerhoven and Samantha Lawler and Matthew J. Lehner and Hsing Wen Lin and Patryk Sofia Lykawka and Michaël Marsset and Ruth Murray-Clay and Rosemary E. Pike and Philippe Rousselot and Cory Shankman and Audrey Thirouin and Pierre Vernazza and Shiang-Yu Wang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.11740},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Invited paper, special issue Data: Insights and Challenges in a Time of Abundance. Data tables and example survey simulator are in the supplementary materials (see arXiv source under Downloads > Other formats)