First Results From The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS)
Z.-W. Zhang, F. B. Bianco, M. J. Lehner, N. K. Coehlo, J.-H. Wang, S., Mondal, C. Alcock, T. Axelrod, Y.-I. Byun, W.-P. Chen, K. H. Cook, R. Dave,, I. de Pater, R. Porrata, D.-W. Kim, S.-K. King, T. Lee, H.-C. Lin, J. J., Lissauer, S. L. Marshall, P. Protopapas, J. A. Rice
TL;DR
This paper reports initial findings from TAOS, a survey monitoring stars at high frequency to detect occultations by small Kuiper Belt Objects, setting upper limits on their size distribution.
Contribution
It presents the first results from TAOS, providing new constraints on small KBO populations based on two years of high-frequency photometric data.
Findings
No significant occultation events detected
Established upper bounds on KBO size distribution
Demonstrated effectiveness of high-frequency monitoring
Abstract
Results from the first two years of data from the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey (TAOS) are presented. Stars have been monitored photometrically at 4 Hz or 5 Hz to search for occultations by small (~3 km) Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). No statistically significant events were found, allowing us to present an upper bound to the size distribution of KBOs with diameters 0.5 km < D < 28 km.
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Taxonomy
TopicsAstro and Planetary Science · Planetary Science and Exploration · Space Exploration and Technology