3.16 Tesis doctorado

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Browsing 3.16 Tesis doctorado by Author "Leiva Espinoza, Rodrigo Andrés"

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    Occultations stellaires pour l’étude des objets trans-neptuniens et les Centaures : applications aux anneaux de Chariklo
    (2017) Leiva Espinoza, Rodrigo Andrés; Sicardy, Bruno; Vanzi, Leonardo; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Instituto de Astrofísica
    The present PhD thesis has been developed in the context of a cotutelle between the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC). The first half of the PhD was done in the Instituto de Astrofísica at PUC and the second half at the Labora- toire d’Etudes Spatiales et d’Instrumentation en Astrophysique (LESIA) at the Observatoire de Paris, in the context of the European Research Council (ERC) project “Lucky Star", whose goal is to study the small objects of the outer Solar System using stellar occultations. Here, I address three important stages of the project: observations with fast cameras, data analysis and physical interpretation of the results. In the first part I describe tests performed on two occultation kits, each consisting in a fast camera, a time registration system and an acquisition software. I show that the EMCCD-based camera performs better than the alternative CMOS camera, reaching stars one magnitude fainter in equivalent conditions. The time registration system (the TimeBox device) has an accuracy below 20 ms with respect to the UTC reference time which is adequate for the timing of the observation of stellar occultations. Interactions with the acquisition software manufacturer lead to the adaptation of such software to the needs of the project. In the second part I study the physical characterization of three ob- ject with the analysis of stellar occultations. For the scattered disk object 2007 UK126 I derive the range and more probable density values analyzing the elliptical fits to a multi chord stellar occultation. For the plutino 2003 AZ84 I constrain the range of compatible density and orientation to a narrow region around ∼870 kg m−3 and opening angle B ∼ 48◦ analyzing two multi-chord stellar occultations. The main subject of this section is the adoption of a Bayesian-MCMC approach for analysis of five stellar occultations by the Centaur object Chariklo. Chariklo appears to be consistent with an ellipsoid with semiaxes a = 148+6−4 km, b = 132+6−5 km, and c = 102+10−8 km presenting topographic features of the order of 6 km. From this nominal model, I derive a body geometric albedo of 4.9±0.1% and a ring reflectivity of 3.7±0.3%. The topographic features for this model are ∼ 6 km, comparable to those of Saturnian icy satellites with similar size and density. In the third part, I consider Lindblad resonances between the mean motions of ring particles and the rotation of an irregular body. Mass excess departing from a spherical body exert strong torques on a collisional disk that clear the material from the corotation radius up to the outermost resonance. Application to Chariklo indicates very short clearing timescales ( < 105 years) and explains the current location of the rings.