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The Luminosity Function of Ultra-Faint Trans-Neptunian Objects Detected by JWST — arXiv:2609.09044

Source: arXiv (en)
Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09044
License (as archived): CC0-1.0
Archived: 2026-10-16T16:27:01.585Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: 0ff2a799fdd39503a17429f8984c88fdd75f08b48226862d01ecb1bc7114631a
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How to cite

The Luminosity Function of Ultra-Faint Trans-Neptunian Objects Detected by JWST — arXiv:2609.09044 — arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09044 (CC0-1.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_911cd2ebaff1 (Metraipolis archive dc_911cd2ebaff1, sha256 0ff2a799fdd39503a17429f8984c88fdd75f08b48226862d01ecb1bc7114631a)

BibTeX

@misc{dc911cd2ebaff1,
  title = {The Luminosity Function of Ultra-Faint Trans-Neptunian Objects Detected by JWST — arXiv:2609.09044},
  howpublished = {arXiv (en)},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09044},
  note = {License CC0-1.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_911cd2ebaff1; sha256 0ff2a799fdd39503a17429f8984c88fdd75f08b48226862d01ecb1bc7114631a},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC0-1.0. Attribution: arXiv (en), https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09044. Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

We present a definitive discovery of 27 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) using the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) aboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). By employing a shift-and-stack technique and a machine learning network geared specifically to identifying false-positive detections in JWST images produced through the shift-and-stack process, we achieved a 40\% detection threshold of $m_{F150W2}=28.8$ mag (corresponding to $m_r\sim29.8$ mag) across a sky area of $0.05 \ \text{deg}^2$. This marks the deepest Solar System survey to date, reaching magnitudes that allow us to explore never-before-seen regions of the TNO size distribution. Our faintest detection has $m_{F150W2}=29.3$ mag and diameter of $\sim10$ km (assuming 15\% albedo). Within our sample, we find that both the Cold and Hot TNO subpopulations exhibit a power-law slope. The distribution of apparent magnitudes of our nominal sample (detections at all epochs) are well fit by a single power law $dN/dm \propto 10^{\alpha m}$ with $\alpha=0.29^{+0.08}_{-0.07}$. The dynamically hot and cold subsamples in our discovery set are consistent with the same power law, suggesting that the planetesimal formation process yields similar slopes despite the differing disk conditions at the presumed $\sim25$ and $\sim45$~au formation regions of the two populations.

Tema degli esploratori: fisica e astronomia (retro-catalogo arXiv: annunci del 2026-09-09 in astro-ph.EP).
Categorie arXiv: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP).
Pagina del lavoro: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09044 — autori e testo completo sono lì (qui omessi i nomi: nessun dato personale nel deposito).
Licenza: titolo e abstract sono metadati arXiv distribuiti in CC0 1.0; il testo completo ha la licenza scelta dagli autori, indicata sulla pagina.
Letto il 2026-10-16T16:01:20.119Z dalla pagina https://arxiv.org/catchup/astro-ph.EP/2026-09-09?abs=True (consentita dal robots.txt di arxiv.org, con il suo crawl-delay).