2003 DPS KBO Workshop Program 1:00 - 1:10 Introductory comments - Asantha Cooray (Caltech) 1:10 - 1:30 Formation of KBOs and expectations for their size distributions - Re'em Sari (Caltech) 1:35 - 2:05 Review of Observational Results from the Deep Ecliptic Survey and others - Marc Buie (Lowell) 2:10 - 2:35 Simulation/Data comparisons and expectations for occultation searches - Joe Hahn (LPI) 2:40 - 2:55 Targeted Occultations Studies (with SOFIA and Ground) - Mike Person (MIT) 2:55 - 3:10 Astrometric Issues Related to KBO Occultations - Larry Wasserman (Lowell) 3:10 - 3:25 Oort cloud models - Luke Dones Coffee Break 3:45 - 4:15 Recent Results from a KBO Occultation Search - Francoise Roques (Obs. Paris) 4:15 - 4:45 Current Blind-field Searches: TAOS - Matt Lehner (UPenn) 4:45 - 5:10 Future Blind-field Searches - Charles Alcock (UPenn) 5:10 - 6:00 Open Discussion: Future directions

Occultation Studies of the Outer Solar System 2003 DPS KBO Workshop

Elliot et al. (Elliot et al.)

Workshop Program Targeted Studies of known KBOs Blind-field monitoring for new KBOs Science goals: physical properties (e.g., radius) potential atmospheres Science goals: establish statistical properties of kilometer size KBOs physical properties of individual objects Main issue: monitoring requirements Main issue: accurate astrometry/orbital info. for predictions

1.Degeneracy between distance and KBO radius, can be broken if v perp is known. For blind-field searches, v perp can be measured with multiple telescopes. 2. Diffraction corrections to the light curve. Require multiwavelength monitoring with a single telescope (and with higher precision)

How can we probe the low size end?

Why KBO occultations are interesting: High optical depth!!!

Why KBO occultations are hard: Small time durations!!!

(down to 16th mag) If limited to time intervals of few tenths of second or more => Monitor 12th magnitude or brighter stars

Variation in expected time distribution due to a turnover in the KBO size distribution

Typical KBO occultation light curve Challenge: How to detect (and extract such events from noisy data)?

Single 12th mag. star for 15 Hours at 20 Hz (Roques et al. 2003)

Hz down to ~13 mag. with 10% accuracy in 3 months (efficiency ??) (ie. TAOS survey)

Hz down to ~13 mag. with 10% accuracy in 3 months (efficiency ??)

Hz down to ~14 mag. in 3 months (~100% efficiency)

Control of systematics Relative velocity measurement by timing the events between widely separated elements (velocity measurement is needed to break the degeneracy between KBO distance and radius). Why an Array of Telescopes for Occultation Studies? Telescope Array for Minor Body Occultations ~10 24 in telescopes over few sq. km. Ability to monitor ~13 mag. stars down to 10% 5 Hz FOV ~ 3 to 4 sq. degrees