Scaling slowly rotating asteroids by stellar occultations
Abstract
As evidenced by recent survey results, majority of asteroids are slow rotators (P>12 h), but lack spin and shape models due to selection bias. This bias is skewing our overall understanding of the spins, shapes, and sizes of asteroids, as well as of their other properties. Also, diameter determinations for large (>60km) and medium-sized asteroids (between 30 and 60 km) often vary by over 30% for multiple reasons. Our long-term project is focused on a few tens of slow rotators with periods of up to 60 hours. We aim to obtain their full light curves and reconstruct their spins and shapes. We also precisely scale the models, typically with an accuracy of a few percent. We used wide sets of dense light curves for spin and shape reconstructions via light-curve inversion. Precisely scaling them with thermal data was not possible here because of poor infrared data: large bodies are too bright for WISE mission. Therefore, we recently launched a campaign among stellar occultation observers, to scale these models and to verify the shape solutions, often allowing us to break the mirror pole ambiguity. The presented scheme resulted in shape models for 16 slow rotators, most of them for the first time. Fitting them to stellar occultations resolved previous inconsistencies in size determinations. For around half of the targets, this fitting also allowed us to identify a clearly preferred pole solution, thus removing the ambiguity inherent to light-curve inversion. We also address the influence of the uncertainty of the shape models on the derived diameters. Overall, our project has already provided reliable models for around 50 slow rotators. Such well-determined and scaled asteroid shapes will, e.g. constitute a solid basis for density determinations when coupled with mass information. Spin and shape models continue to fill the gaps caused by various biases.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2310.08995,
title = {Scaling slowly rotating asteroids by stellar occultations},
author = {A. Marciniak and J. Ďurech and A. Choukroun and J. Hanuš and W. Ogłoza and R. Szakáts and L. Molnár and A. Pál and F. Monteiro and E. Frappa and W. Beisker and H. Pavlov and J. Moore and R. Adomavičienė and R. Aikawa and S. Andersson and P. Antonini and Y. Argentin and A. Asai and P. Assoignon and J. Barton and P. Baruffetti and K. L. Bath and R. Behrend and L. Benedyktowicz and L. Bernasconi and G. Biguet and M. Billiani and D. Błażewicz and R. Boninsegna and M. Borkowski and J. Bosch and S. Brazill and M. Bronikowska and A. Bruno and M. Butkiewicz - Bąk and J. Caron and G. Casalnuovo and J. J. Castellani and P. Ceravolo and M. Conjat and P. Delincak and J. Delpau and C. Demeautis and A. Demirkol and M. Dróżdż and R. Duffard and C. Durandet and D. Eisfeldt and M. Evangelista and S. Fauvaud and M. Fauvaud and M. Ferrais and M. Filipek and P. Fini and K. Fukui and B. Gährken and S. Geier and T. George and B. Goffin and J. Golonka and T. Goto and J. Grice and K. Guhl and K. Halíř and W. Hanna and M. Harman and A. Hashimoto and W. Hasubick and D. Higgins and M. Higuchi and T. Hirose and R. Hirsch and O. Hofschulz and T. Horaguchi and J. Horbowicz and M. Ida and B. Ignácz and M. Ishida and K. Isobe and E. Jehin and B. Joachimczyk and A. Jones and J. Juan and K. Kamiński and M. K. Kamińska and P. Kankiewicz and H. Kasebe and B. Kattentidt and D. -H. Kim and M. -J. Kim and K. Kitazaki and A. Klotz and M. Komraus and I. Konstanciak and R. Könyves - Tóth and K. Kouno and E. Kowald and J. Krajewski and G. Krannich and A. Kreutzer and A. Kryszczyńska and J. Kubánek and V. Kudak and F. Kugel and R. Kukita and P. Kulczak and D. Lazzaro and J. Licandro and F. Livet and P. Maley and N. Manago and J. Mánek and A. Manna and H. Matsushita and S. Meister and W. Mesquita and S. Messner and J. Michelet and J. Michimani and I. Mieczkowska and N. Morales and M. Motyliński and M. Murawiecka and J. Newman and V. Nikitin and M. Nishimura and J. Oey and D. Oszkiewicz and M. Owada and E. Pakštienė and M. Pawłowski and W. Pereira and V. Perig and J. Perła and F. Pilcher and E. Podlewska-Gaca and J. Polák and T. Polakis and M. Polińska and A. Popowicz and F. Richard and J. J. Rives and T. Rodrigues and Ł. Rogiński and E. Rondón and M. Rottenborn and R. Schäfer and C. Schnabel and O. Schreurs and A. Selva and M. Simon and B. Skiff and M. Skrutskie and J. Skrzypek and K. Sobkowiak and E. Sonbas and S. Sposetti and P. Stuart and K. Szyszka and K. Terakubo and W. Thomas and P. Trela and S. Uchiyama and M. Urbanik and G. Vaudescal and R. Venable and Ha. Watanabe and Hi. Watanabe and M. Winiarski and R. Wróblewski and H. Yamamura and M. Yamashita and H. Yoshihara and M. Zawilski and P. Zelený and M. Żejmo and K. Żukowski and S. Żywica},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.08995},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
Accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysics. 12 pages + appendices