AAS 203rd Meeting, January 2004
Session 15 Comets, Kuiper Belt and Trans-Neptunian Objects
Poster, Monday, January 5, 2004, 9:20am-6:30pm, Grand Hall

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[15.04] The Size Inclination Correlation of the Kuiper Belt

W. C. Fraser (McMaster University), J. Kavelaars (Hertzberg Institute for Astrophysics), M. J. Holman, T. Grav (Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

Recent studies of the Kuiper belt suggest that the high inclination KBO's have a different size distribution than that of the low inclination KBO's. This possibility holds significant consequences for the dynamical history of the Kuiper belt and it's formation. We discuss the usefulness of the K-S test as a non-parametric measure of the difference in these two size distribtuions. Our preliminary results suggest no significant differences in the size distributions of objects with high orbital inclinations and those with low orbital inclinations. We discuss our analysis of the K-S test and it's utility in the examination of the difference in the size distributions of the two groups. We find that the K-S test is not able to distinguish highly different size distributions from equally observationally biased populations. The consequences of the poor utility of the K-S test are also discussed.


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: wfraser@cfa.harvard.edu

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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35#5
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.