2010/01/05 by Himadri Sekhar Das, H. S. Das, A. Suklabaidya +3 · 1 citation
Chemistry · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Analytical Chemistry (journal) #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics #Chemistry #Chromatography #Cluster (spacecraft) #Comet #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Molecular physics #Monomer #Nuclear magnetic resonance #Optics #Physical chemistry #Physics #Planetary Science and Exploration #Polarization (electrochemistry) #Polymer #Power law #Refractive index #Scattering #Statistics #Wavelength #astro-ph.EP
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1674-4527/10/4/006
9 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2010/01/05 · openalex publication_date 2010/03/22 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The observed linear polarization data of comet Hyakutake are studied at wavelengths λ = 0.365 μm, λ = 0.485 μm and 0.684μm through simulations using Ballistic Particle–Cluster Aggregate and Ballistic Cluster–Cluster Aggregate aggregates of 128 spherical monomers. We first found that the size parameter of the monomer, x ∼ 1.56–1.70, turned out to be the most suitable which provides the best fits to the observed dust scattering properties at three wavelengths: λ = 0.365 μm, 0.485 μm and 0.684 μm. Thus, the effective radius of the aggregate ( r ) lies in the range 0.45 μm ≤ r ≤ 0.49 μm at λ = 0.365 μm; 0.60 μm ≤ r ≤ 0.66 μm at λ = 0.485 μm and 0.88 μm ≤ r ≤ 0.94 μm at λ = 0.684 μm. Now using superposition t-matrix code and the power-law size distribution, n ( r ) ∼ r −3 , the best-fitting values of complex refractive indices are calculated for the observed polarization data at the above three wavelengths. The best-fitting complex refractive indices ( n , k ) are found to be (1.745, 0.095) at λ = 0.365 μm, (1.743, 0.100) at λ = 0.485 μm and (1.695, 0.100) at λ = 0.684 μm. The refractive indices derived from the present analysis correspond to a mixture of both silicates and organics, which are in good agreement with the in situ measurement of comets by different spacecraft.