Occultation Searches for Kuiper Belt Objects

The occultation of background stellar sources by foreground Kuiper BeltObjects (KBOs) can be used to survey physical properties of the KBO population.We discuss statistics related to a KBO occultation survey, such as the eventduration distribution, and suggest that occultation searches can be effectivelyused to probe the KBO size distribution below 10 km. In particular, we suggestthat occultation surveys may be best suited to search for a turnover radius inthe KBO size distribution due to collisions between small-size objects. Foroccultation surveys that monitor stellar sources near the ecliptic over a fewsquare degrees, with time sampling intervals of order 0.1 sec and sensitivityto flux variations of a few percent or more, a turnover radius between 0.1 and1.0 km can be probed. While occultation surveys will probe the low-radius limitand imaging surveys will detect KBOs of size 100 km or more, statistics ofobjects with sizes in the intermediate range of around 1 km to 100 km willlikely remain unattainable.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; ApJL submitte