Absolute magnitudes and slope parameters of Pan-STARRS PS1 asteroids -preliminary results

P. Vereš, R. Jedicke, A. Fitzsimmons, L. Denneau, B. Bolin, R. Wainscoat, J. Tonry

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We present the study of absolute magnitude (H) and slope parameter (G) of 170,000 asteroids observed by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope during the period of 15 months within its 3-year all-sky survey mission. The exquisite photometry with photometric errors below 0.04 mag and well-defined filter and photometric system allowed to derive H and G with statistical and systematic errors. Our new approach lies in the Monte Carlo technique simulating rotation periods, amplitudes, and colors, and deriving most-likely H, G and their systematic errors. Comparison of H_M by Muinonen's phase function (Muinonen et al., 2010) with the Minor Planet Center database revealed a negative offset of 0.22±0.29 meaning that Pan-STARRS1 asteroids are fainter. We showed that the absolute magnitude derived by Muinonen's function is systematically larger on average by 0.14±0.29 and by 0.30±0.16 when assuming fixed slope parameter (G=0.15, G_{12}=0.53) than Bowell's absolute magnitude (Bowell et al., 1989). We also derived slope parameters of asteroids of known spectral types and showed a good agreement with the previous studies within the derived uncertainties. However, our systematic errors on G and G_{12} are significantly larger than in previous work, which is caused by poor temporal and phase coverage of vast majority of the detected asteroids. This disadvantage will vanish when full survey data will be available and ongoing extended and enhanced mission will provide new data.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAsteroids, Comets, Meteors: Book of Abstracts, Helsinki, Finland, 2014
EditorsKarri Muinonen, Antti Penttila, Michael Granvik, Anne Virkki, Grigori Fedorets, Olli Wilkman, Tomas Kohout
PublisherUniversity of Helsinki Press
Pages577
Number of pages1
ISBN (Electronic)978-952-10-8962-6
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2014

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