Physical properties of B-type asteroids from WISE data

Abstract

Aims: Our aim is to obtain more information about the physical nature of B-type asteroids and extend on the previous work by studying their physical properties derived from fitting an asteroid thermal model to their NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) data. We also examine the Pallas collisional family, a B-type family with a moderately high albedo in contrast to the large majority of B-types. Methods: We apply a combination of the NEATM and a model of the reflected sunlight to WISE asteroid data in order to derive effective diameter (D), the so-called infrared beaming parameter (\eta), ratio of infrared to visible albedo (R_p = p_{IR}/p_V) and visible geometric albedo (p_V). Results: We obtained parameter values for $\ga$ 100 B-types asteroids and plotted the value distributions of p_V, R_p and \eta (p_V = 0.07 +- 0.03$, R_p = 1.0 +- 0.2, and \eta = 1.0 +- 0.1). By combining the IR and visible albedos with 2.5-micron reflectances from the literature we obtained the ratio of reflectances at 3.4 and 2.5 micron, from which we found statistically significant indications that the presence of a 3-micron absorption band related to water may be commonplace among the B-types. Finally, the Pallas collisional family members studied ($\sim$ 50 objects) present moderately high values of p_V (p_V = 0.14 +- 0.05), significantly higher than the average albedo of B-types. In addition, this family presents the lowest and most homogeneously distributed R_p-values of our whole sample, which shows that this group is clearly different from the rest, likely because its members are pieces probably originating from the same region of (2) Pallas, a particularly high-albedo B-type asteroid.