The Canada–France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS)—High-latitude Component

We report the orbital distribution of the Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) discovered during the High Ecliptic Latitude (HiLat) extension of the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS), conducted from June 2006 to July 2009. The HiLat component was designed to address one of the shortcomings of ecliptic surveys (like CFEPS), their lack of sensitivity to high-inclination objects. We searched 701 deg 2 of sky ranging from 12 • to 85 • ecliptic latitude and discovered 24 TNOs, with inclinations between 15 • to 104 •. This survey places a very strong constraint on the inclination distribution of the hot component of the classical Kuiper Belt, ruling out any possibility of a large intrinsic fraction of highly inclined orbits. Using the parameterization of Brown (2001), the HiLat sample combined with CFEPS imposes a width 14 • ≤ σ ≤ 15.5 • , with a best match for σ = 14.5 •. HiLat discovered the first retrograde TNO, 2008 KV 42 , with an almost polar orbit with inclination 104 • , and (418993), a scattering object with perihelion in the region of Saturn's influence, with a ∼ 400 AU and i = 68 • .