Is the Cometary Nucleus Extraction Technique Reliable?

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the reliability of the cometary nucleus extraction technique, finding it dependable only when the nucleus signal is at least 10% of the total, due to sensitivity to various observational factors.

Contribution

It provides empirical guidelines on the conditions under which the cometary nucleus extraction technique yields reliable results.

Findings

Reliability decreases with lower nucleus-to-coma signal ratio.

Technique is dependable when nucleus signal exceeds 10% of total.

Bias remains within a few percent under optimal conditions.

Abstract

It depends. Our experiment reveals that, given an optically thin coma, generally, the smaller the signal ratio of nucleus to coma, the less reliable is the cometary nucleus-extraction technique. We strongly suggest the technique only be applied to cases where the nucleus signal occupies $\gtrsim$10% of the total signal wherein the bias is no more than a few percent. Otherwise there is probably no way to debias results from this technique in reality, since its reliability is highly sensitive to entangling complications, including the coma profile, and the point-spread function (PSF).