Scaling detection of activity-boosted 3I/ATLAS to interloper population estimates

Develop a method to meaningfully scale the ATLAS survey detection of 3I/ATLAS—whose brightness was enhanced by a dust coma—to robust estimates of the number density and size distribution of interstellar objects with similar nuclei but less or no activity.

Background

The dominance of coma in 3I/ATLAS complicates interpreting the survey detection in terms of nucleus properties and population statistics. While HST limits mitigate earlier extreme size estimates and associated mass budget concerns, deriving number densities from activity-boosted detections is nontrivial.

The authors explicitly note the difficulty of extrapolating the ATLAS detection to nuclei with weaker or absent activity, leaving interloper population statistics uncertain pending an approach that accounts for activity state differences.