The DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP): I. Survey description, science questions, and technical demonstration

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2309.03417
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: David E. Trilling; D. W. Gerdes; Mario Jurić; Chadwick A. Trujillo; Pedro H. Bernardi...; Kevin J. Napier; Hayden Smotherman; Ryder Strauss; César Fuentes; Matthew J. Holman; Hsing Wen Lin; Larissa Markwardt; Andrew McNeill; Michael Mommert; William J. Oldroyd; Matthew J. Payne; Darin Ragozzine; A. S. Rivkin; Hilke E. Schlichting; Scott S. Sheppard; Fred C. Adams; Colin Orion Chandler
• Keywords: Ecliptic

We present here the DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP), a three year NOAO/NOIRLab Survey that was allocated 46.5 nights to discover and measure properties of thousands trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) magnitudes as faint VR~27, corresponding sizes small 20 km diameter. In this paper we science goals project, experimental design our survey, technical demonstration approach. The core project is "digital tracking," in which all collected images are combined at range motion vectors detect unknown TNOs fainter than single exposure depth VR~23 mag. Through approach reach approximately 2.5 standard LSST "wide fast deep" nominal survey 24.5 DEEP will more double number known with observational arcs 24 hours or more, increase by factor 10 (<50 km) TNOs. also describe ancillary goals, including measuring mean shape distribution very main belt asteroids, briefly outline set forthcoming papers further aspects preliminary results from program.