A search of the full six years of the Dark Energy Survey for outer Solar System objects

• Published in: arXiv.org 2021-09
• Main Authors: Bernardinelli, Pedro H, Bernstein, Gary M, Sako, Masao, Yanny, Brian, Aguena, M, Allam, S, Andrade-Oliveira, F, Bertin, E, Brooks, D, Buckley-Geer, E, Burke, D L, A Carnero Rosell, M Carrasco Kind, Carretero, J, Conselice, C, Costanzi, M, da Costa, L N, De Vicente, J, Desai, S, Diehl, H T, Dietrich, J P, Doel, P, Eckert, K, Everett, S, Ferrero, I, Flaugher, B, Fosalba, P, Frieman, J, Garcia-Bellido, J, Gerdes, D W, Gruen, D, Gruendl, R A, Gschwend, J, Hinton, S R, Hollowood, D L, Honscheid, K, James, D J, Kent, S, Kuehn, K, Kuropatkin, N, Lahav, O, Maia, M A G, March, M, Menanteau, F, Miquel, R, Morgan, R, Myles, J, Ogando, R L C, Palmese, A, Paz-Chinchon, F, Pieres, A, Plazas Malagon, A A, Romer, A K, Roodman, A, Sanchez, E, Scarpine, V, Schubnell, M, Serrano, S, Sevilla-Noarbe, I, Smith, M, Soares-Santos, M, Suchyta, E, Swanson, M E C, Tarle, G, C To, Varga, T N, Walker, A R, the DES collaboration
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Centaurs; Dark energy; Inspection; Isotropy; Kuiper belt; Object recognition; Oort cloud; Orbital resonances (celestial mechanics); Outer solar system; Searching; Signal to noise ratio; Sky surveys (astronomy); Southern sky; Trans-Neptunian objects; Visual signals
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2109.03758

We present the results of a search for outer Solar System objects in the full six years of data (Y6) from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). The DES covered a contiguous \(5000\) deg\(^2\) of the southern sky with \(\approx 80,000\) \(3\) deg\(^2\) exposures in the \(grizY\) optical/IR filters between 2013 and 2019. This search yielded 815 trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), one Centaur and one Oort cloud comet, with 461 objects reported for the first time in this paper. We present methodology that builds upon our previous search carried out on the first four years of data. Here, all DES images were reprocessed with an improved detection pipeline that leads to an average completeness gain of 0.47 mag per exposure, as well as an improved transient catalog production and optimized algorithms for linkage of detections into orbits. All objects were verified by visual inspection and by computing the sub-threshold significance, the total signal-to-noise ratio in the stack of images in which the object's presence is indicated by the orbit fit, but no detection was reported. This yields a highly pure catalog of TNOs complete to \(r \approx 23.8\) mag and distances \(29