Göttingen 2025 – scientific programme

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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 10: Poster Session

EP 10.15: Poster

Thursday, April 3, 2025, 11:00–12:30, ZHG Foyer 1. OG

Characterizing cometary dust: Insights from advanced modeling of scattered light — •Johannes Markkanen — Institut für Geophysik und Extraterrestrische Physik, TU Braunschweig, Germany

Analyzing the scattered light produced by cometary dust particles can provide valuable insights into their physical properties, including size, morphology, and composition. However, interpreting this scattered light presents significant challenges for standard computational methodologies. Moreover, the solutions to inverse problems are often non-unique, suggesting that reliance on a single observable may lead to potentially erroneous conclusions.

In this presentation, I will offer a comprehensive analysis of the observed polarization and color in cometary comae, utilizing cutting-edge numerical light-scattering solvers. I will demonstrate that integrating multi-instrument observations with self-consistent numerical light scattering and dust dynamical modeling can substantially enhance the reliability of the derived physical properties of cometary dust. Additionally, this approach allows us to investigate potential ongoing non-stationary processes, such as fragmentation and sublimation, within the coma.

Keywords: cometary dust; light scattering; dynamical modelling