English

Tentative Detection of the Rotation of Eris

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We report a multi-week sequence of B-band photometric measurements of the dwarf planet Eris using the {\it Swift} satellite. The use of an observatory in low-Earth orbit provides better temporal sampling than is available with a ground-based telescope. We find no compelling evidence for an unusually slow rotation period of multiple days, as has been suggested previously. A \sim1.08 day rotation period is marginally detected at a modest level of statistical confidence (\sim97%). Analysis of the combination of the SwiftSwift data with the ground-based B-band measurements of \citet{2007AJ....133...26R} returns the same period (\sim1.08 day) at a slightly higher statistical confidence (\sim99%).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0808.4130,
  title  = {Tentative Detection of the Rotation of Eris},
  author = {H. G. Roe and R. E. Pike and M. E. Brown},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0808.4130},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Accepted to Icarus 2008-Aug-19. 19 pages total, including 4 figures and 1 table