RUI: Photometric Survey of Jovian Trojans

该项目包括对木星特洛伊小行星的系统研究，这些小行星在木星稳定的拉格朗日点引领和跟踪木星。这项研究将测试或限制认为特洛伊木马是在原地形成的模型，以及其他表明它们分散在更大日心距离的模型。提出建议的团队将使用4色(BVRI)光学光度法来区分特洛伊人中已知的主要成分群彼此之间，以及主要小行星带中的主要成分群。他们将获得高达200个特洛伊木马的BVRI颜色和高达75个的时间分辨率光曲线，使确定良好的特洛伊木马光曲线的数量接近200个，并将测试不同的成分组是否具有不同的旋转参数，表明材料强度或碰撞历史的差异。该团队计划将特洛伊木马与主带小行星、天鹅座和希尔达斯(主带外缘的相邻群体)、柯伊伯带天体和彗核的性质进行比较。这一本科院校研究项目将直接让本科生参与研究，并支持合作院校研究生的论文。其中一些学生将是妇女和/或代表人数不足的群体的成员。这些方法和结果将被纳入本科课程，每年由首席调查员和合作者讲授多达300名学生，他们经常在公共外联论坛上发言。

This project comprises a systematic study of the Jovian Trojan Asteroids, which lead and trail Jupiter at its stable Lagrange points. The study will test or constrain models suggesting that the Trojans formed in situ and others suggesting they were scattered from greater heliocentric distances. The proposing team will use 4-color (BVRI) optical photometry to distinguish the major compositional groups known among the Trojans from each other, and from compositional groups in the main asteroid belt. They will obtain BVRI colors of up to 200 Trojans and time-resolved light curves of up to 75, bringing the number of well-determined Trojan light curves close to 200, and will test whether different compositional groups have different rotation parameters, indicating either differences in material strength or collisional history. The team plans to compare the properties of the Trojans with main belt asteroids, Cybeles and Hildas (neighboring groups on the outer edge of the main belt), Kuiper Belt objects, and cometary nuclei. This Research in Undergraduate Institutions project will directly involve undergraduate students in the research as well as support the dissertation of a graduate student at a collaborating institution. Some of these students will be women and/or members of underrepresented groups. The methods and results will be incorporated into undergraduate classes reaching up to 300 students per year taught by the Principal Investigator and collaborators, who are frequent speakers in public outreach forums.