Accretion in the Kuiper Belt: The Deep Ecliptic Survey

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AST 0407232TrillingThe Kuiper Belt, a ring of debris and dust outside the planetary realm of our Solar System,is the last, most pristine record of the processes of planetary accretion in our Solar System.Dr. David Trilling and his collaborator Dr. Marc Buie will study the Kuiper Belt and its residents, Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), to constrain the timescale of accretion in the outer Solar System. Trilling and Buie both participate in the ongoing, large-scale Deep Ecliptic Survey (DES) for KBOs and will use the DES database as the backbone of their science endeavors. The tasks to be carried out are as follows. Trilling will make new observations in the DES program. Trilling and Buie will also carry out a comprehensive photometry program that will be used to calibrate the DES catalog. Both of these observing tasks will make extensive use of telescopes in Arizona and Chile. Lastly, Trilling and Buie will carry out completeness experiments on the DES catalog. These three tasks prepare the way for scientific analysis of the Kuiper Belt using the 500 DES KBOs. The first step of the science analysis will be to carry out a statistical study of the DES data in combination with other surveys' data to derive, with strong confidence, the differential sky density of KBOs. This mathematical expression can be directly related to accretion timescales through theoretical models to provide a tight constraint on the duration of accretion in the Kuiper Belt. Lastly, combining the DES dataset with newly available KBO albedo information from the Space Infrared Telescope Facility allows a true KBO size distribution to be derived for the first time. The intellectual merit of these technical tasks and science goals lies in the quest to understandhow the outer Solar System formed and evolved. The results derived here will be crucially important in constraining and driving the next generation of outer Solar System accretion models. These models have impact beyond the Kuiper Belt, as planets in the Solar System (and beyond) underwent accretion as part of their formation processes. This program will have a broader impact in the community primarily through participation in the University of Arizona Space Grant program. Through the Space Grant program, Trilling will recruit one undergraduate research intern per year from among the diverse pool of applications. This series of students will have specific research tasks, including participating in observing runs. Trilling will also participate in Space Grant's Science Speakers program to present science results in classrooms and to the general public. Such a program uniquely allows bringing knowledge to communities of racial, ethnic, and economic diversity. Lastly, in addition to public outreach, this research program will produce an extensive photometric catalog, which will be widely available, and will calibrate the large DES archive, which will also be available for use in various other scientific projects from Solar System science to cosmology.