Observing Electron Impact Excitation of Cometary Comae from the Ground

Fitzsimmons, A. (Invited speaker)

Activity: Talk or presentation types › Invited or keynote talk at national or international conference

Description

One of the many highlights of the Rosetta mission was the discovery of the important role of electron impacts in the excitation of cometary gases. Feldman et al. (2015) and Bodewits et al. (2016) found that the near-nucleus brightness distribution of various atomic and molecular species was only explainable by electron impact dissociation. At the same time, it is clear that the vast majority of Earth-based comet observations are consistent with normal photodissociation models coupled with simple photon scattering. We have made commenced some ad-hoc calculations of electron-impact dissociation models of comae brightness distributions, to assess whether ground-based detection of this process is feasible. We will present initial findings at this meeting.
Period25 May 2017 → 26 May 2017
Event titleThe new view of comet coma processes after Rosetta: The importance of electrons
Event typeWorkshop
LocationBratislava, Slovakia
Degree of RecognitionInternational