A New 3D Multi-fluid Dust Model: A Study of the Effects of Activity and Nucleus Rotation on Dust Grain Behavior at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

Shou, Y.; Combi, M.; Toth, G.; Tenishev, V.; Fougere, N.; Jia, X.; Rubin, Martin; Huang, Z.; Hansen, K.; Gombosi, T. (2017). A New 3D Multi-fluid Dust Model: A Study of the Effects of Activity and Nucleus Rotation on Dust Grain Behavior at Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Astrophysical journal, 850(1), p. 72. Institute of Physics Publishing IOP 10.3847/1538-4357/aa91ca

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Improving our capability to interpret observations of cometary dust is necessary to deepen our understanding of the role of dust in the formation of comets and in altering the cometary environments. Models including dust grains are in demand to interpret observations and test hypotheses. Several existing models have taken into account the gas–dust interaction, varying sizes of dust grains and the cometary gravitational force. In this work, we develop a multifluid dust model based on the BATS-R-US code. This model not only incorporates key features of previous dust models, but also has the capability of simulating time-dependent phenomena. Since the model is run in the rotating comet reference frame, the centrifugal and Coriolis forces are included. The boundary conditions on the nucleus surface can be set according to the distribution of activity and the solar illumination. The Sun revolves around the comet in this frame. A newly developed numerical mesh is also used to resolve the real-shaped nucleus in the center and to facilitate prescription of the outer boundary conditions that accommodate the rotating frame. The inner part of the mesh is a box composed of Cartesian cells and the outer surface is a smooth sphere, with stretched cells filled in between the box and the sphere. Our model achieved comparable results to the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo method and the Rosetta/OSIRIS observations. It is also applied to study the effects of the rotating
nucleus and the cometary activity and offers interpretations of some dust observations of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

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