Physical Characteristics of Cometary Dust from Dynamical Studies: A Review

Abstract

In this review attention is focused on those areas of the dynamical investigation of cometary dust in which significant progress has been achieved since the previous review papers (Sekanina 1976a, 1977). Much of the progress stems from work based on the model of dust comets formulated by Finson and Probstein (1968a). Their introduction of a new technique for dust-tail studies has made it possible for the first time to gain insight into such properties of cometary dust as the size distribution function of particles shortly after emission from the comet nucleus, the distribution of particle ejection velocities, and the production of dust versus time. Since the Finson-Probstein approach is of a combined dynamical/photometric type, information on particle sizes and masses is provided indirectly, through parametric functions determined from the observed distribution of light intensity in the tail. The basic limitation is that particle radius a cannot be separated from particle density ρ, as their product is related to a directly observed quantity β, the acceleration exerted on the particle by solar radiation pressure. Expressed in units of solar attraction, β for a spherical particle is given by where c0 = 0.585 × 10−4 g/cm2 and Qpr is the integrated scattering efficiency of the particle for radiation pressure, which varies significantly with a for particles whose dimensions are smaller than the effective wavelength of solar radiation.