The role of water in the thermal balance of the coma

Computer Science

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Atmospheric Chemistry, Atmospheric Heating, Cometary Atmospheres, Heat Transfer, Thermal Environments, Water, Molecular Excitation, Monte Carlo Method, Photolysis, Temperature Profiles

Scientific paper

The efficiency of photolytic heating in cometary atmospheres is investigated by a Monte Carlo simulation. Radiative cooling by water is treated with the excitation model of Bockelee-Morvan (1987) which includes radiative transfer. Solutions for the expansion velocity and temperature profiles of a dust-free coma are compared with observations of P/Halley. Close agreement is found. The gas expansion velocity is peculiarly sensitive to model assumptions. A heating source as strong as the dust infrared heating postulated by Marconi and Mendis (1986) would accelerate the gas at velocities greater than 1.2 km/sec in the inner coma, in conflict with the velocities observed in situ. Similarly, large gas initial temperatures would yield too large gas velocities: this suggests that the gas emission regions of the nucleus are disconnected from the hot (400 K) nucleus regions observed by the imaging channel of the VEGA IKS instrument.

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