What is the source of truth for NuGet package index? - nuget

Question

I have a NuGet repo in Artifactory (version 7.27.9) hosting a few PowerShell modules packaged as .nupkg. I am using the following NuGet V2 API endpoint to browse my packages (I assume this is the package index) but am seeing packages that are inconsistent with what my Artifactory web GUI shows: https://my-artifactory.com/artifactory/api/nuget/my-nuget/Packages() (when I run Find-Module -Verbose I can see that this is the URL it is using to search for packages).
For example, one of the entries it returns is:
<entry>
<id>https://my-artifactory:443/artifactory/api/nuget/my-nuget/Packages(Id='Adlm-Utilities',Version='1.0.0')</id>
<title type="text">Adlm-Utilities</title>
<summary type="text">Test module</summary>
<updated>2022-04-26T18:39:29Z</updated>
<author>
<name>Me</name>
</author>
<link rel="edit" title="V2FeedPackage" href="Packages(Id='Adlm-Utilities',Version='1.0.0')"/>
<link rel="self" title="V2FeedPackage" href="Packages(Id='Adlm-Utilities',Version='1.0.0')"/>
<category term="NuGetGallery.OData.V2FeedPackage" scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme"/>
<content type="application/zip" src="https://my-artifactory:443/artifactory/api/nuget/my-nuget/Download/Adlm-Utilities/1.0.0"/>
<m:properties xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata" xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices">
<d:lastUpdated>2022-04-26T18:39:29</d:lastUpdated>
<d:Version>1.0.0</d:Version>
<d:Copyright>(c) 2022 Me. All rights reserved.</d:Copyright>
<d:Created m:type="Edm.DateTime">2022-04-26T18:39:29</d:Created>
<d:Dependencies></d:Dependencies>
<d:Description>Test module</d:Description>
<d:DownloadCount m:type="Edm.Int32">0</d:DownloadCount>
<d:IsLatestVersion m:type="Edm.Boolean">false</d:IsLatestVersion>
<d:IsAbsoluteLatestVersion m:type="Edm.Boolean">false</d:IsAbsoluteLatestVersion>
<d:IsPrerelease m:type="Edm.Boolean">false</d:IsPrerelease>
<d:Language m:null="true"/>
<d:Published m:type="Edm.DateTime">2022-04-26T18:39:29</d:Published>
<d:PackageHash>zZlILVNqiwQLnILs0X86XG93sxUug7bmlXX2SLE5JfZ5YCLklwB2B0LCbB8/f4wJjeQhd3yVo6yZIgDy6RWoDQ==</d:PackageHash>
<d:PackageHashAlgorithm>SHA512</d:PackageHashAlgorithm>
<d:PackageSize m:type="Edm.Int64">3787</d:PackageSize>
<d:ReleaseNotes></d:ReleaseNotes>
<d:RequireLicenseAcceptance m:type="Edm.Boolean">false</d:RequireLicenseAcceptance>
<d:Tags>PSModule</d:Tags>
<d:Title m:null="true"/>
<d:VersionDownloadCount m:type="Edm.Int32">0</d:VersionDownloadCount>
<d:Authors>Me</d:Authors>
<d:MinClientVersion m:null="true"/>
</m:properties>
</entry>
This package, Adlm-Utilities-1.0.0.nupkg, does not exist -- it did at one point, but I deleted it via the Artifactory web GUI. If I grab the URL from the src attribute of the <content> element (https://my-artifactory:443/artifactory/api/nuget/my-nuget/Download/Adlm-Utilities/1.0.0), and paste it in my browser to download it, I get a 404, confirming that this package does not exist.
I am seeing this behavior all throughout this package index -- there are tons of old packages that I have deleted that are still showing up in the index. I have emptied the Artifactory trash can, as well as recalculated the index on the my-nuget repo, and still the index doesn't change. Artifactory appears to be correct -- it is showing the correct packages in the GUI and when I recalculate the index, I can look in console.log and see that it is only processing the packages I can see. It seems that this NuGet index is completely separate from the Artifactory index.
Some questions I have:
Where is this /api/nuget/<repo>/Packages() endpoint getting its information? Is it the Artifactory database or some flat file on the VM?
Is there anyway to force this index to update?
Can packages even be removed from this index?
Is there a better way to delete packages from a NuGet repo? I pushed these packages using Publish-Module but there doesn't seem to be an inverse cmdlet to "unpublish" a module