Wise-allsky

Aaron Meisner (LBL): NEOWISE Beyond the Main Belt: Searching for Planet Nine

November
30
S M T W T F S

Launched almost seven years ago, the WISE satellite continues to collect W1 and W2 images as part of the NEOWISE-Reactivation (NEOWISER) mission. I am leading an effort to repurpose NEOWISER exposures for science beyond the main belt, generating deep and time-resolved coadds which incorporate all W1 and W2 exposures ever acquired. These data products have wide-ranging applications, from brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood to precision constraints on dark energy. I will describe our use of these coadds to perform the deepest WISE search for Planet Nine, which may be detectable at W1 = 3.4 microns, depending on its atmospheric properties. Coadding allows us to reject instrumental transients, making a wide area search readily tractable. Our search reaches depths 1.4 magnitudes beyond the single-exposure detection limit and distances of up to 800 AU. In the ~2000 square degree region searched thus far, we exclude Planet Nine at W1 < 16.7, which can correspond to an optical constraint as faint as VR ~ 22. I will comment on our progress in extending this search to the entire sky.

Date: November 30th, 2016
Location: MR LCR