S. D. Kern and J. L. Elliot 2006 ApJ 643 L57 doi:10.1086/504940
S. D. Kern1 and J. L. Elliot1,2,3
Show affiliationsWe estimate the frequency of widely spaced (separations greater than 0
5) Kuiper Belt binaries (KBBs) from surveys for new Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) with the Deep Ecliptic Survey and through recovery observations for newly discovered KBOs at the Magellan telescopes. We find the frequency of KBBs versus discovery separation to be related by an inverse power law when combining our results with those for the fraction of close binaries (separations less than 0
5) found in the literature. For wide separations, our data and the resulting model agree with the model proposed by Goldreich et al. in 2002. However, including the frequency at the smallest separation rules out the semimajor-axis dependence of the Goldreich et al. model at the 99% confidence level, indicating that there is likely a turnover in the distribution at very close separations, or that the number of close binaries has been underestimated. In either case, the binary-frequency distribution favors binary formation models invoking gravitational rather than physical interactions—such as those proposed by Goldreich et al. and Astakhov et al. (2005).
Issue 1 (2006 May 20)
Received 2006 March 16, accepted for publication 2006 April 7
Published 2006 May 4
S. D. Kern and J. L. Elliot 2006 ApJ 643 L57
S A Jansen et al 2008 Phys. Med. Biol. 53 5481
E N Glass and J P Krisch 2004 Class. Quantum Grav. 21 5543
C. Yu et al. 2010 ApJ 712 198
Hoang Ngoc Long and Vo Thanh Van 1999 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 25 2319
Orsola De Marco et al. 2008 The Astronomical Journal 136 323
Richard Barvainis et al. 1997 ApJ 484 695
Patrick Côté et al. 2000 ApJ 533 869
F Acernese et al 2007 Class. Quantum Grav. 24 S491
Sang Woo Lee et al 2007 J. Micromech. Microeng. 17 2272