Phase Curves of 10 Trojan Asteroids in BVI over a Wide Phase Range

Details Phase Curves of 10 Trojan Asteroids in BVI over a Wide Phase Range Phase Curves of 10 Trojan Asteroids in BVI over a Wide Phase Range

Sep 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.2813s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #28.13; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.438

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We have used the SMARTS 1.3 m telescope at CTIO to acquire 50 nights of B, V, and I observations from very low to high phase angles of the following 10 Trojans: 588 Achilles, 1208 Troilus, 1383 Limburgia, 4348 Poulydamas, 6998 Tithonus, 8317 Eurysaces, 12126 (1999 RM11), 13323 (1998 SQ), 24506 (2001 BS15), and 51378 (2001 AT33). Due to the queue scheduling of this telescope we were able to obtain many observations over a wide range of phase angles in only a few years, including a significant number at < 0.5 deg.
All the phase curves are roughly linear over the entire phase range (as much as +/- 10 deg), with slopes between about 0.045 and 0.075 mag/deg (except for 51378, which displays an anomalous slope near zero). There may be evidence for rotational modulation in some cases. There appear to be no pronounced opposition spikes, and no differences between the phase curves in different colors.
With the exception of 51378, these slopes are higher than is possible with shadow-hiding alone; therefore coherent backscatter must be involved.
The slopes are consistent with similar published slopes for many types of asteroids. In particular, the phase curves of the Trojan asteroids are similar to the phase curves of non-Trojan P-type asteroids. However, the phase curves are not consistent with those of E- and S-type asteroids, which show prominent opposition spikes.
The slopes are not inconsistent with those of gray Centaurs, but are greatly inconsistent with the slopes of red Centaurs. This agrees with the prediction (see B. E. Schaefer et al. poster, this conference) that the Trojans should have similar surge properties to the gray Centaurs.
We thank the NASA Planetary Astronomy Program for support.

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