An Archival Deep Drilling Kuiper Belt Search in the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey

An Archival Deep Drilling Kuiper Belt Search in the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey

Program ID	19019
Science Category	Solar System
Program Type	Analysis
Category	Large
Principal Investigator	Kevin Napier
PI Institution	Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Co-Investigators	Matthew Holman (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) David Trilling (Northern Arizona University) Gary Bernstein (University of Pennsylvania) Will Grundy (Lowell Observatory) Wesley Fraser (Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre) Bryan Hilbert (Space Telescope Science Institute / STScI) John Stansberry (Space Telescope Science Institute / STScI) JJ Kavelaars (Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre)
Abstract	The Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS) was designed to address a number of questions of galactic astrophysics, but it will also be a landmark survey for solar system science. The field has an ecliptic latitude of 5-6 degrees, meaning that there will be a significant population of solar system bodies in the data. We will mine the public GBTDS images to discover approximately 1000 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) to a limiting magnitude of F146 = 28.0 through the first three seasons of GBTDS observations. To date, only a handful of KBOs fainter than F146 = 27.0 have been observed, so this search will result in a new regime of outer Solar System science. The majority of the objects we find will have orbit determinations that are precise enough for dynamical classification, and each object will have, on average, ~5000 measurement opportunities, meaning that we will be able to measure light curves in exquisite detail. Capitalizing on Roman's unprecedented capabilities will allow us to answer several key science questions. Are the measurable physical properties of the hot population of KBOs, such as their shapes (including binarity), rotation periods, sizes, and infrared colors, in any way distinguishable between the dynamical subclasses of the hot population? What is the contact binary fraction in the hot Kuiper Belt and, further, among its dynamical subclasses? Likewise for non-contact binaries? Can we distinguish the hot KBOs from other populations such as the Jupiter Trojans, and do they share a common origin? Is there a significant population of very distant objects in the Solar System, and if so, what are the properties and structure of that population? Does "Planet 9" exist? GBTDS data can be used to either place significant strong constraints on the existence of that planet, in the case of a non-detection, or else provide a revolutionary detection of this hypothesized body.