Abstract
The cometary coma consists of neutral gas, plasma, and dust grains. The dust grains can influence both the neutral and charged coma’s constituents. Usually, the presence of dust particles in a plasma results in additional losses of both electrons and ions due to the plasma recombination on the particle surfaces. Solar radiation makes the impact of dust even more complicated depending on the solar flux, the dust number density, the photoelectric properties of the dust particles, the dust particle composition, the distribution of the sizes, etc. We propose a simple kinetic model evaluating the role of dust particles in the coma plasma chemistry and demonstrate that this role can be crucial, resulting in a nontrivial behavior of both the electron and ion densities of the plasma. We show that a coma’s dust particles can be negatively as well as positively charged depending on their composition. These opposite charges of the grains can result in fast coagulation of dust particles, thus, forming complex aggregate shapes of cometary grains.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
S. V. Vladimirov and K. Ostrikov, Phys. Rep. 393, 175 (2004).
V. E. Fortov et al., Phys. Rep. 421, 1 (2005).
S. V. Vladimirov, K. Ostrikov, and A. A. Samarian, Physics and Applications of Complex Plasmas (Imperial College, London, 2005).
M. R. Combi, W. M. Harris, and W. H. Smyth, in Comets II, Ed. by M. C. Festou et al. (Univ. of Arizona, Tuscon, 2004).
K. Altwegg, H. Balsiger, and J. Geiss, Space Sci. Rev. 90, 3 (1999).
S. A. Haider and A. Bhardwaj, Icarus 175, 196 (2005).
S. D. Rodgers et al., in Comets II, Ed. by M. C. Festou et al. (Univ. of Arizona, Tuscon, 2004), p. 505; H. U. Schmidt et al., Comput. Phys. Commun. 49, 17 (1988).
Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids, Ed. by. E. D. Palik (Academic, New York, 1998).
B. A. Klumov, S. I. Popel, and R. Bingham, JETP Lett. 72, 364 (2000).
B. A. Klumov, G. Morfill, and S. I. Popel, JETP 100, 152 (2005).
B. A. Klumov, S. V. Vladimirov, and G. Morfill, JETP Lett. 82, 632 (2005).
B. T. Draine, Astron. J. Suppl. 36, 595 (1978); J. C. Weingartner, B. T. Draine, and D. K. Barr, Astrophys. J. 645, 1188 (2006).
S. A. Khrapak et al., Phys. Rev. E 72, 016406 (2005).
S. A. Khrapak, B. A. Klumov, and G. E. Morfill, Phys. Plasmas 14, 034502 (2007).
R. M. Haberli et al., Icarus 130, 373 (1997).
L. Kolokolova et al., in Comets II, Ed. by M. Festou et al. (Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, 2004), p. 577.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The text was submitted by the authors in English.