Euclid Asteroseismology and Kuiper Belt Objects

Abstract

Euclid, which is primarily a dark-energy/cosmology mission, may have a microlensing component, consisting of perhaps four dedicated one-month campaigns aimed at the Galactic bulge. We show that such a program would yield excellent auxilliary science, including asteroseimology detections for about 100,000 giant stars, and detection of about 1000 Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), down to 2--2.5 mag below the observed break in the KBO luminosity function at I ~26. For the 400 KBOs below the break, Euclid will measure accurate orbits, with fractional period errors <~ 2.5%.

8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to JKAS