Polarimetry of (162173) Ryugu at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory using the 1.8-m Telescope with TRIPOL

The Hayabusa 2 mission target asteroid (162173) Ryugu is a near-Earth, carbonaceous (C-type) asteroid. Before the arrival, this asteroid is expected to be covered with mm- to cm- sized grains through the thermal infrared observations [1]. These grains are widely understood to be formed by past impacts with other celestial bodies and fractures induced by thermal fatigue [2]. However, the close-up images by the MASCOT lander showed lumpy boulders but no abundant fine grains [3]. Morota et al. suggested that there would be submillimeter particles on the top of these boulders but not resolved by Hayabusa 2's onboard instruments [4]. Hence, we conducted polarimetry of Ryugu to investigate microscopic grain sizes on its surface. Polarimetry is a powerful tool to estimate physical properties such as albedo and grain size. Especially, it is known that the maximum polarization degree (Pmax) and the geometric albedo (pV) show an empirical relationship depending on surface grain sizes [5]. We observed Ryugu from UT 2020 November 30 to December 10 at large phase angles (ranging from 78.5 to 89.7 degrees) to derive Pmax. We modified TRIPOL (Triple Range Imager and POLarimeter, [6]) to attach to the 1.8-m telescope at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO). With this instrument, we observed the asteroid and determined linear polarization degrees at the Rc-band filter. We obtained sufficient data sets from 7 nights at this observatory to determine the Pmax value, and collaborated with other observatories in Japan (i.e., Hokkaido University, Higashi-Hiroshima, and Nishi-Harima) to acquire linear polarization degrees of the asteroid from total 24 nights observations with large phase angle coverage (From 28 to 104 degrees). The observational results have been published in Kuroda et al. (2021) [7]. We thus found the dominance of submillimeter particles on the surface of Ryugu from the comparison with other meteorite samples from the campaign observation. In this presentation, we report our activity to modify the TRIPOL for the 1.8-m telescope and the polarimetric performance. We also examine the rotational variability of the polarization degree using the TRIPOL data.