Discovery of a New Member of the Inner Oort Cloud from The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a new Inner Oort Cloud object, 2010 GB174, from the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey, providing insights into the population and distribution of distant solar system objects.

Contribution

It presents the discovery of a new IOC member with detailed orbital parameters and estimates the total IOC population based on survey data.

Findings

2010 GB174 has a semi-major axis of approximately 350.8 AU.

Estimated IOC population with sizes >300 km is around 11,000.

The power-law slope of the IOC luminosity function is approximately 0.7.

Abstract

We report the discovery of 2010 GB$_{174}$, a likely new member of the Inner Oort Cloud (IOC). 2010 GB$_{174}$ is one of 91 Trans Neptunian Objects (TNOs) and Centaurs discovered in a 76 deg$^2$ contiguous region imaged as part of the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS) --- a moderate ecliptic latitude survey reaching a mean limiting magnitude of $g^\prime \simeq 25.5$ --- using MegaPrime on the 3.6m Canada France Hawaii Telescope. 2010 GB$_{174}$ is found to have an orbit with semi-major axis $a\simeq350.8$ AU, inclination $i \simeq 21.6^\circ$ and pericentre $q\sim48.5$ AU. This is the second largest perihelion distance among known solar system objects. Based on the sky coverage and depth of the NGVS, we estimate the number of IOC members with sizes larger than 300 km ($H_V \le 6.2$ mag) to be $\simeq 11\,000$. A comparison of the detection rate from the NGVS and the PDSSS (a characterized survey that `re-discovered' the IOC object Sedna) gives, for an assumed a power-law LF for IOC objects, a slope of $\alpha \simeq 0.7 \pm 0.2$, with only two detections in this region this slope estimate is highly uncertain.