Other
Scientific paper
Oct 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011epsc.conf.1382t&link_type=abstract
EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011, held 2-7 October 2011 in Nantes, France. http://meetings.copernicus.org/epsc-dps2011, p.1382
Other
Scientific paper
The existence of bound dust particles around cometary nuclei has been argued based on analytical grounds [1, 2], and demonstrated numerically [3, 4, 5]. Dust particles emitted by cometary nuclei could stay in temporary bound orbits around the nuclei for timescales as large as weeks or months or even longer. These particles could act as a reservoir of cometary dust and may explain some of the baffling observations that have so far eluded a self-consistent interpretation. In the case of comet 1P/Halley, the gas production rates are nearly symmetric pre- and post-perihelion. On the other hand, the dust production rate is consistently higher in the post-perihelion by approximately factor three [6]. For a comet that is in a principal axis rotation, this could be due to seasonal effects. However, for comet 1P/Halley, which is in a non-principal axis spin state [7, 8], it was shown by [9] that the subsolar point traverses the entire nucleus over "diurnal" timescales and no seasonal effects are likely. We propose a model of dust dynamics in the nearnucleus coma [10], that allows to assess the observable effects due to particles that move in bound orbits, escape the gravity of the nucleus, and fall back on to the nucleus. The dust particles are ejected from a rotating non-spherical nucleus, and move under the combined influence of comet and solar gravity, solar radiation pressure, and gas drag when near the nucleus. Based on our preliminary work, it is indeed possible to have higher dust-to-gas ratios during the postperihelion leg due to dust particles in temporary bound orbits. Similarly, this approach could explain the anomalous increase in brightness of comet 2P/Encke observed near aphelion [11, 12], and might help characterize the bound comae in active Centaurs [13].
Samarasinha Nalin H.
Tricarico Pasquale
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