Modeling the Envelope of the Secular Light Curve of the Comete 1P/Halley

TL;DR

This paper models the secular light curve of comet 1P/Halley by analyzing water production rates, surface temperature, and rotation axis orientation, providing insights into the comet's activity and physical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a new modeling approach linking water production, light curve envelope, and rotation axis orientation of comet 1P/Halley.

Findings

Probable rotation axis orientations identified.

Surface temperature remains constant across latitudes at perihelion.

Correlation between water production rate and reduced magnitude established.

Abstract

We have been modeling the envelope of the secular light curve (Ferr\'in, 2010) of comet 1P/Halley. As the first step we have modeled the water production rate of the comet, for several active regions as a function of visual albedo and infrared albedo, and then we have used the correlation between the water production rate and the reduced magnitude (Jorda, 2008) for modeling the envelope of the secular light curve of the comet. We obtain probable orientations of the rotation axis (I,$\Phi$). These orientations are compared with several solutions by several authors. We have calculated the surface temperature for the orientation of the rotation axis with minimal standar deviation. We have found that for near and far values of the perihelion the surface temperature as a function of the latitude is constant.