Related papers: Detection of Small Kuiper Belt Objects by Stellar …
Occultations of stars by asteroids have been observed since 1961, increasing from a very small number to now over 500 annually. We have created and regularly maintain a growing data-set of more than 5,000 observed asteroidal occultations.…
In the absence of any unseen planetary-mass bodies in the outer solar system, the mean plane of the distant Kuiper belt should be the same as the plane orthogonal to the angular momentum vector of the solar system -- the invariable plane.…
We show that the occultation of Sagittarius A* by stars can be detected with space-based or space-ground very-long-baseline-interferometers (SVLBIs), with an expected event rate that is high due to relativistic precession. We compute the…
In this paper we dynamically determine the mass of the Kuiper Belt Objects by exploiting the latest observational determinations of the orbital motions of the inner planets of the Solar System. Our result, in units of terrestrial masses, is…
The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) monitors fields of up to ~1000 stars at 5 Hz simultaneously with four small telescopes to detect occultation events from small (~1 km) Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). The survey presents a number…
We describe the instrumentation and detection software and characterize the detection efficiency of an automated, all-sky, southern-hemisphere search for Kuiper Belt objects brighter than R mag 21.4. The search relies on Yale University's…
It appears that at least several percent of large Kuiper belt objects are members of wide binaries. Physical collisions are too infrequent to account for their formation. Collisionless gravitational interactions are more promising. These…
A distant, massive planet in the outer solar system has recently been proposed to explain some observed features of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Here we use N-body simulations of the formation of the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud as…
The formation of the largest objects in the Kuiper belt, with measured densities of ~1.5 g cm-3 and higher, from the coagulation of small bodies, with measured densities below 1 g cm-3 is difficult to explain without invoking significant…
The distortion of images of faint background galaxies by (weak) gravitational lensing can be used to measure the mass distribution of the deflector. The image distortions can be used to define a weighted mean of the mass inside a circular…
The dynamically cold component of the Kuiper Belt is host to a population of very widely separated, near-equal mass binary systems. Such binaries, representing the tail of the separation distribution of the more common, more tightly-bound…
The spatial distribution of compact dark matter in our Galaxy can be determined in a few years of monitoring Galactic globular clusters for microlensing. Globular clusters are the only dense fields of stars distributed throughout the…
The extreme conditions found near black holes and neutron stars provide a unique opportunity for testing physical theories. Observations of both types of compact objects can be used to probe regions of strong gravity, allowing for tests of…
The discovery of binaries in each of the major populations of minor bodies in the solar system is propelling a rapid growth of heretofore unattainable physical information. The availability of mass and density constraints for minor bodies…
Motivated by debris disk studies, we investigate the gravitational microlensing of background starlight by a planetesimal disk around a foreground star. We use dynamical survival models to construct a plausible example of a planetesimal…
The search for minor bodies in the solar system promises insights into its formation history. Wide imaging surveys offer the opportunity to serendipitously discover and identify these traces of planetary formation and evolution. We aim to…
Using the adaptive optics facilities at the 200-in Hale and 10-m Keck II, we observed in the near infrared a sample of 12 binary and multiple stars and one open cluster. We used the near diffraction limited images of these systems to…
This paper presents an investigation into the gravitational microlensing of quasars by stars and stellar remnants in the Milky Way. We present predictions for the all-sky microlensing optical depth, time-scale distributions and event rates…
Our understanding of extra-solar planet systems is highly driven by advances in observations in the past decade. Thanks to high precision spectrograph, we are able to reveal unseen companions to stars with the radial velocity method. High…
The study of Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) is one of the most exciting topics that can be undertaken by long baseline optical interferometry. The magnitudes of these objects are at the edge of capabilities of current optical interferometers,…