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October 3, 2025The Astronomical Journal2 citationsOpen Access

Dense-photometry Validation of Superfast-rotating Asteroid Candidates

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BNBojan NovakovićPGP. J. Gutiérrez

Key Points

  • Nine asteroid candidates had reliably determined periods, confirming four superfast rotators.
  • The period of confirmed superfast rotators ranged between 1.06 and 1.84 hours, with amplitudes from 0.054 to 0.685 mag.
  • Ambiguity lingered for three candidates, while others had periods exceeding 2.5 hours, requiring reclassification.
  • The central SFR fraction was estimated at 1.1%, with a lower bound of 0.6% in kilometer-scale asteroids.

Abstract

Abstract Superfast rotators (SFRs; P < 2.2 hr) are of great importance in asteroid studies; yet, many reported detections suffer from aliasing caused by an insufficient observation cadence. We present dense CCD photometry for 15 SFR candidates (14 after excluding 11219 Benbohn, whose published period already exceeds the spin barrier) observed from 2023 August 11 to 2024 August 11 with the 1.5 m Sierra Nevada and 1.4 m Astronomical Station of Vidojevica telescopes. Our data set comprises approximately 2400 calibrated data points, with per-measurement formal errors of 0.02–0.04 mag and total on-target coverage of 2–13 hr per object. We have reliably determined periods for nine targets. In terms of spin rate, we have confirmed four SFRs with periods of 1.06–1.84 hr and peak-to-peak amplitudes of 0.054–0.685 mag. Three candidates remain ambiguous, while the rest are reclassified, showing the best solutions with periods greater than 2.5 hr. Extrapolating from our confirmation rate (4/14) to the 3.9% occurrence rate found in the Light Curve Database yields a central SFR fraction of 1.1%, with a 1 σ lower bound of 0.6% among kilometer-scale asteroids.

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Cite This Study

Novaković et al. (2025) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/68e040f7a99c246f578b39edhttps://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ae0473
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