Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR): Photometry and Stellar transit

TL;DR

This study presents two-year photometric monitoring of Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR), revealing nucleus properties, a split nucleus, dust production rates, and a stellar transit event, providing insights into cometary activity and fragmentation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR)'s nucleus, dust activity, and fragmentation, including detection of nucleus splitting and a stellar transit observation.

Findings

Detected split of the comet nucleus.

Estimated dust production rate and nucleus size.

Observed a stellar transit near the nucleus.

Abstract

We present results of two-year photometric monitoring of Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR) that spans the time period from February 2013 through December 2014, before and after perihelion passage. The observations were conducted with broadband R filter. Analysis of observations of Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR) allows estimating the nucleus radius as function of geometric albedo and phase-darkening coefficient. Furthermore, our observations showed split of the comet. Fragment (B) additional to the primary C/2011 J2 nucleus was unambiguously detected; relative velocity is estimated to be near 0.17 ''/day. We derive the Afrho parameter and estimate the dust production rate in Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR) over the entire run of observations. We found a noticeable increase in Afrho parameter between September 18, 2014 and November 5, 2014, epoch when the nucleus presumably got split. On September 28, 2014, we observed a transit of the 16-magnitude star (USNO-A2 1275-18299027) near nucleus of the Comet C/2011 J2 (LINEAR). We retrieve the optical depth of the coma 0.034. The filling factor f that corresponds to such optical depth is in good quantitative agreement with the value that can be derived from the Afrho parameter under reasonable assumption on geometric albedo of cometary dust.