Detectability of Occultations of Stars by Objects in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud

Abstract

The serendipitous detection of stellar occultations by outer solar system objects is a powerful method for ascertaining the small end (r 15 km) of the size distribution of Kuiper Belt objects and may potentially allow the exploration of objects as far out as the Oort Cloud. The design and implementation of an occultation survey is aided by a detailed understanding of how diffraction and observational parameters affect the detection of occultation events. In this study, stellar occultations are simulated, accounting for diffraction effects, finite source sizes, finite bandwidths, stellar spectra, sampling, and signal-to-noise ratios. Finally, the possibility of detecting small outer solar system objects from the Kuiper Belt all the way out to the Oort Cloud is explored for three photometric systems: a proposed space telescope, Whipple, the Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey, and the MMT.