Asteroid phase curve modeling with empirical correction for shape and viewing geometry

TL;DR

This paper introduces an empirical correction method for asteroid phase curves that accounts for shape and viewing geometry, improving the accuracy of photometric modeling across multiple observations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel empirical approach using precomputed models to normalize asteroid photometry, enabling consistent phase-curve fitting and new physically motivated parameter constraints.

Findings

Applied to over 25,000 asteroids from ATLAS survey

Demonstrated improved phase-curve modeling accuracy

Identified convergence issues with HG12 function and proposed solutions

Abstract

We present a novel empirical method for correcting asteroid phase curves for rotational and geometrical effects using precomputed spin-and-shape models. Our approach normalizes sparse photometric data to a pole-on geometry, enabling consistent phase-curve fitting across apparitions. We fit both the H,G1,G2 and H,G12 phase functions to the normalized data. We also numerically derive new constraints on parameter ranges that ensure physically meaningful solutions. These constraints are based on the requirement that the reduced magnitude must monotonically decrease with phase angle and remain within plausible slope bounds. Compared to earlier bounds, our new constraints are more permissive. We also compare derivative-based and derivative-free optimization methods, highlighting convergence issues with the HG12 function and offering mitigation strategies. We applied our method to over 25,000 asteroids observed by the ATLAS survey, demonstrating its usability. The new method enables the selection of the preferred spin-and-shape solution based on either statistical phase-curve model selection criteria and/or physically motivated constraints on the phase-curve shape.