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The OH distribution in cometary atmospheres - A collisional Monte Carlo model for heavy speciesThe study presents an extension of the cometary atmosphere Monte Carlo particle trajectory model formalism which makes it both physically correct for heavy species and yet computationally reasonable. The derivation accounts for the collision path and scattering redirection of a heavy radical traveling through a fluid coma with a given radial distribution in outflow speed and temperature. The revised model verifies that the earlier fast-H atom approximations used in earlier work are valid, and it is applied to a case where the heavy radical formalism is necessary: the OH distribution. It is found that a steeper variation of water production rate with heliocentric distance is required for a water coma which is consistent with the velocity-resolved observations of Comet P/Halley.
Document ID
19930052414
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Combi, Michael R.
(NASA Headquarters Washington, DC United States)
Bos, Brent J.
(Michigan Univ. Ann Arbor, United States)
Smyth, William H.
(Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. Cambridge, MA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
May 10, 1993
Publication Information
Publication: Astrophysical Journal, Part 1
Volume: 408
Issue: 2
ISSN: 0004-637X
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
93A36411
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASW-3949
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASW-1907
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASW-3387
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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