X-Ray and extreme ultraviolet emissions from comets

Abstract

There is significant progress in the observations, theory, and understanding of the x-ray and EUV emissions from comets since their discovery in 1996. That discovery was so puzzling because comets appear to be more efficient emitters of x-rays than the Moon by a factor of 80 000. The detected emissions are general properties of comets and have been currently detected and analyzed in thirteen comets from five orbiting observatories. The observational studies before 2000 were based on x-ray cameras and low resolution (E/δE ≈ 1.5-3) instruments and focused on the morphology of xrays, their correlations with gas and dust productions in comets and with the solar x-rays and the solar wind. Even those observations made it possible to choose uniquely charge exchange between the solar wind heavy ions and cometary neutrals as the main excitation process. The recently published spectra are of much better quality and result in the identification of the emissions of the multiply charged ions of O, C, Ne, Mg, and Si which are brought to comets by the solar wind. The observed spectra have been used to study the solar wind composition and its variations. Theoretical analyses of x-ray and EUV photon excitation in comets by charge exchange, scattering of the solar photons by attogram dust particles, energetic electron impact and bremsstrahlung, collisions between cometary and interplanetary dust, and solar x-ray scattering and fluorescence in comets have been made. These analyses confirm charge exchange as the main excitation mechanism, which is responsible for more than 90% of the observed emission, while each of the other processes is limited to a few percent or less. The theory of charge exchange and different methods of calculation for charge exchange are considered. Laboratory studies of charge exchange relevant to the conditions in comets are reviewed. Total and state-selective cross sections of charge exchange measured in the laboratory are tabulated. Simulations of synthetic spectra of charge exchange in comets are discussed. X-ray and EUV emissions from comets are related to different disciplines and fields such as cometary physics, fundamental physics, x-rays spectroscopy, and space physics.