Time-series and Phase-curve Photometry of the Episodically Active Asteroid (6478) Gault in a Quiescent State Using APO, GROWTH, P200, and ZTF

Purdum, Josiah N. and Lin, Zhong-Yi and Bolin, Bryce T. and Sharma, Kritti and Choi, Philip I. and Bhalerao, Varun and Hanuš, Josef and Kumar, Harsh and Quimby, Robert and van Roestel, Joannes C. and Zhai, Chengxing and Fernandez, Yanga R. and Lisse, Carey M. and Bodewits, Dennis and Fremling, Christoffer and Ryan Golovich, Nathan and Hsu, Chen-Yen and Ip, Wing-Huen and Ngeow, Chow-Choong and Saini, Navtej S. and Shao, Michael and Yao, Yuhan and Ahumada, Tomás and Anand, Shreya and Andreoni, Igor and Burdge, Kevin B. and Burruss, Rick and Chang, Chan-Kao and Copperwheat, Chris M. and Coughlin, Michael and De, Kishalay and Dekany, Richard and Delacroix, Alexandre and Drake, Andrew and Duev, Dmitry and Graham, Matthew and Hale, David and Kool, Erik C. and Kasliwal, Mansi M. and Kostadinova, Iva S. and Kulkarni, Shrinivas R. and Laher, Russ R. and Mahabal, Ashish and Masci, Frank J. and Mróz, Przemyslaw J. and Neill, James D. and Riddle, Reed and Rodriguez, Hector and Smith, Roger M. and Walters, Richard and Yan, Lin and Zolkower, Jeffry (2021) Time-series and Phase-curve Photometry of the Episodically Active Asteroid (6478) Gault in a Quiescent State Using APO, GROWTH, P200, and ZTF. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 911 (2). L35. ISSN 2041-8205

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Abstract

We observed the episodically active asteroid (6478) Gault in 2020 with multiple telescopes in Asia and North America and found that it is no longer active after its recent outbursts at the end of 2018 and the start of 2019. The inactivity during this apparition allowed us to measure the absolute magnitude of Gault of Hr = 14.63 ± 0.02, Gr = 0.21 ± 0.02 from our secular phase-curve observations. In addition, we were able to constrain Gault's rotation period using time-series photometric lightcurves taken over 17 hr on multiple days in 2020 August, September, and October. The photometric lightcurves have a repeating ≲0.05 mag feature suggesting that (6478) Gault has a rotation period of ∼2.5 hr and may have a semispherical or top-like shape, much like the near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu. The rotation period of ∼2.5 hr is near the expected critical rotation period for an asteroid with the physical properties of (6478) Gault, suggesting that its activity observed over multiple epochs is due to surface mass shedding from its fast rotation spin-up by the Yarkovsky–O'Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack effect.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Grantha Library > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User: Unnamed user with email support@granthalibrary.com
Date Deposited: 13 May 2023 07:47
Last Modified: 06 Jul 2024 07:21
URI: http://asian.universityeprint.com/id/eprint/890

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