Apr 1981
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1981apj...245..743b&link_type=abstract
Astrophysical Journal, vol. 245, 743-752. Article.
Other
7
Comae, Comet Tails, Molecules, Density, Solar Radiation, Magnetic Fields, Pressure, Photoionization, Protons, Solar Winds, Shock, Electrons, Plasmas, Mathematical Models, Carbon Monoxide, Formation, Acceleration, Comets, Ionization, Ions
Scientific paper
The density of cometary molecules is substantially decreased by the effect of solar radiation pressure and decreases Sunward from the comet nucleus in a much shorter distance than previously anticipated when the effect of radiation pressure was neglected. Either photoionization or charge transfer by electron pickup of protons from cometary molecules would gradually slow the solar wind and heat it. On the other hand, the inhomogeneity of mass and field in the solar wind will cause a fast shock to be created on the surface of the ionized cometary atmosphere. Fast electrons in the shock further ionize the cometary atmosphere much faster and more copiously than the charge-transfer process is able to. Hot plasma then travels out along the magnetic field lines, confining the cometary ions and thus generating type 1 cometary tails. The pressure of the solar wind acting on the tubes of isotropically distributed hot plasma causes the plasma to accelerate anti-Sunward in a way that makes the tall rays straight and makes the plasma collapse on the anti-Sunward axis in the observed time of about one day.
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