Refined physical parameters for Chariklo’s body and rings from stellar occultations observed between 2013 and 2020

Full list of authors: Morgado, B. E.; Sicardy, B.; Braga-Ribas, F.; Desmars, J.; Gomes-Júnior, A. R.; Bérard, D.; Leiva, R.; Ortiz, J. L.; Vieira-Martins, R.; Benedetti-Rossi, G.; Santos-Sanz, P.; Camargo, J. I. B.; Duffard, R.; Rommel, F. L.; Assafin, M.; Boufleur, R. C.; Colas, F.; Kretlow, M.; Beisker, W.; Sfair, R.; Snodgrass, C.; Morales, N.; Fernández-Valenzuela, E.; Amaral, L. S.; Amarante, A.; Artola, R. A.; Backes, M.; Bath, K. -L.; Bouley, S.; Buie, M. W.; Cacella, P.; Colazo, C. A.; Colque, J. P.; Dauvergne, J. -L.; Dominik, M.; Emilio, M.; Erickson, C.; Evans, R.; Fabrega-Polleri, J.; Garcia-Lambas, D.; Giacchini, B. L.; Hanna, W.; Herald, D.; Hesler, G.; Hinse, T. C.; Jacques, C.; Jehin, E.; Jørgensen, U. G.; Kerr, S.; Kouprianov, V.; Levine, S. E.; Linder, T.; Maley, P. D.; Machado, D. I.; Maquet, L.; Maury, A.; Melia, R.; Meza, E.; Mondon, B.; Moura, T.; Newman, J.; Payet, T.; Pereira, C. L.; Pollock, J.; Poltronieri, R. C.; Quispe-Huaynasi, F.; Reichart, D.; de Santana, T.; Schneiter, E. M.; Sieyra, M. V.; Skottfelt, J.; Soulier, J. F.; Starck, M.; Thierry, P.; Torres, P. J.; Trabuco, L. L.; Unda-Sanzana, E.; Yamashita, T. A. R.; Winter, O. C.; Zapata, A.; Zuluaga, C. A.--This is an Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Context. The Centaur (10199) Chariklo has the first ring system discovered around a small object. It was first observed using stellar occultation in 2013. Stellar occultations allow sizes and shapes to be determined with kilometre accuracy, and provide the characteristics of the occulting object and its vicinity. Aims. Using stellar occultations observed between 2017 and 2020, our aim is to constrain the physical parameters of Chariklo and its rings. We also determine the structure of the rings, and obtain precise astrometrical positions of Chariklo. Methods. We predicted and organised several observational campaigns of stellar occultations by Chariklo. Occultation light curves were measured from the datasets, from which ingress and egress times, and the ring widths and opacity values were obtained. These measurements, combined with results from previous works, allow us to obtain significant constraints on Chariklo's shape and ring structure. Results. We characterise Chariklo's ring system (C1R and C2R), and obtain radii and pole orientations that are consistent with, but more accurate than, results from previous occultations. We confirm the detection of W-shaped structures within C1R and an evident variation in radial width. The observed width ranges between 4.8 and 9.1 km with a mean value of 6.5 km. One dual observation (visible and red) does not reveal any differences in the C1R opacity profiles, indicating a ring particle size larger than a few microns. The C1R ring eccentricity is found to be smaller than 0.022 (3σ), and its width variations may indicate an eccentricity higher than ~0.005. We fit a tri-axial shape to Chariklo's detections over 11 occultations, and determine that Chariklo is consistent with an ellipsoid with semi-axes of 143.8-1.5+1.4, 135.2-2.8+1.4, and 99.1-2.7+5.4 km. Ultimately, we provided seven astrometric positions at a milliarcsecond accuracy level, based on Gaia EDR3, and use it to improve Chariklo's ephemeris. © B. E. Morgado et al. 2021.
This work was carried out within the “Lucky Star” umbrella that agglomerates the efforts of the Paris, Granada and Rio teams, which is funded by the European Research Council under the European Community’s H2020 (ERC Grant Agreement No. 669416). This research made use of SORA, a python package for stellar occultations reduction and analysis, developed with the support of ERC Lucky Star and LIneA/Brazil, within the collaboration Rio-Paris-Granada teams. This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Part of this research is suported by INCT do e-Universo, Brazil (CNPQ grants 465376/2014-2). Based in part on observations made at the Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica (LNA), Itajubá-MG, Brazil. The data include observations taken by the MiNDSTEp team at the Danish 1.54 m telescope at ESO’s La Silla observatory” and “UGJ acknowledges funding from the European Union H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019 under grant no. 860470 (CHAMELEON) and from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme grant no. NNF19OC0057374. TRAPPIST-South is funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique, FNRS) under the grant PDR T.0120.21. The authors acknowledge the use of Sonja Itting-Enke’s C14 telescope and the facilities at the Cuno Hoffmeister Memorial Observatory (CHMO). The following authors acknowledge the respective CNPq grants: BEM 150612/2020-6; FB-R 314772/2020-0; RV-M 304544/2017-f5, 401903/2016-8; JIBC 308150/2016-3 and 305917/2019-6; MA 427700/2018-3, 310683/2017-3, 473002/2013-2. G.B.R. acknowledges CAPES-FAPERJ/PAPDRJ grant E26/203.173/2016 and CAPES-PRINT/UNESP grant 88887.571156/2020-00, MA FAPERJ grant E-26/111.488/2013 and ARGJr FAPESP grant 2018/11239-8. J.L.O., P.S.-S., R.D., and N.M. acknowledge financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the “Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa” award to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709), from Spanish project AYA2017-89637-R, and from FEDER. P.S.-S. acknowledges financial support by the Spanish grant AYA-RTI2018-098657-J-I00 “LEO-SBNAF” (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). E. Jehin is a Belgian FNRS Senior Research Associate. R.S. and O.C.W. acknowledge FAPESP grant 2016/24561-0 and CNPq grant 305210/2018-1. T.C.H. acknowledges financial support from the National Research Foundation (NRF; No. 2019R1I1A1A01059609).