Spin And Rotational Temperatures Of Water And Methane: Comets C/2007 N3 (Lulin) And C/2007 W1 (Boattini)

Details Spin And Rotational Temperatures Of Water And Methane: Comets C/2007 N3 (Lulin) And C/2007 W1 (Boattini) Spin And Rotational Temperatures Of Water And Methane: Comets C/2007 N3 (Lulin) And C/2007 W1 (Boattini)

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.2307b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #23.07

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We report spin and rotational temperatures of H2O and CH4 in comets C/2007 N3 (Lulin) and C/2007 W1 (Boattini). These results are based on near-infrared NIRSPEC/Keck 2 spectra (resolving power \ 25,000) of water and methane emission from these comets. While the rotational temperature reflects conditions in the collisionally dominated inner cometary coma, the spin temperature has long been considered a possible (though not certain) indicator of the chemical formation temperature for water (or methane) in comets. We highlight three principal results: (1) for comet C/2007 N3 we provide a direct comparison between the rotational temperatures measured for ortho-H2O, para-H2O, and CH4; (2) we also compare the spin temperatures found for CH4 and H2O with the chemical formation temperature suggested from the D/H ratio in methane. (3) For comet C/2007 W1 we will present spatially-resolved measurements of both the rotational and spin temperature for H2O, providing a direct test for the spin temperature invariance in cometary comae.
We gratefully acknowledge support from the NSF Planetary Astronomy Program, the NASA Planetary Astronomy Program, and the NASA Astrobiology Program.

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