The spatial distribution of molecular species observed in comet Hale Bopp with the Plateau de Bure Interferometer

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

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Scientific paper

In March 1997, with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer, unique data were obtained in comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) on several species with angular resolution of 1 to 3''. We have developed a model which simulates interferometric observations of spectral lines. This model takes into account the variation of the excitation conditions in the coma and optical depth effects, found to be significant in comet Hale-Bopp. It can accommodate any 3-D molecular spatial distribution and its velocity field as input parameters. We present here the analysis of the observed CO coma structure using physical models of comet Hale-Bopp atmosphere and that of CS and SO radial distribution assuming an isotropic outflow. The traditional (no gas dynamics) analysis of CO observations suggested the presence of a nearly equatorial CO jet spiraling with nucleus rotation and comprising about 40 percent the total CO production (Henry et al. 2002). Rodionov and Crifo (2006) developed a time-dependent 3-D model of comet Hale-Bopp gas coma. They investigated first the case of a homogeneous outgassing of CO and H2O from a non-spherical rotating nucleus. A second computation considers the same nucleus and H2O outgassing but assumes the presence of an area with increased CO production on the nucleus surface. We show that the structures created in the first case cannot explain the observations while those detected in the second case are comparable to observed ones. The study of the radial distribution of molecular species can provide constraints on their photodissociation rate, and, for radicals, on that of their parents. These rates are not well known for several species and we present results obtained for CS, SO and SO2.

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