Light scattering in cometary dust comae

Abstract

Single and multiple scattering calculations were performed for a spherically symmetric cometary atmosphere irradiated by a plane parallel source. It is suggested that the increased flux found for anisotropic phase functions is due to the effect of directional scattering in the forward sun-comet axis. The isotropic multiply scattered flux at the surface is shown to be an increasing function of the opacity (tau) for tau of less than about 2.5. At large tau values, the maximum in the downward directed scattered flux still increases, but occurs at a height of several radii above the nucleus, resulting in a reduction at the surface. Results suggest that, except in the vicinity of the sun-comet axis, the plane parallel geometry tends to underestimate the degree of scattering.