Laboratory of MSSB physics: scientific achievements

 

Theoretical findings

Main theoretical results are mostly described in the books written by L. M. Shulman "Comet nuclei" (1987, in russian) and "Dynamics of Cometary Atmospheres. Neutral gas " (1972, in russian). The development of ideas presented in these books promotes further research in the following areas:

  • development of a physical model of the local areas of activity; possible ways of formation of active regions; the mechanisms and specific features of energy exchange and sublimation processes from local active centers;
  • 3-D models based on the Monte-Carlo statistical method was developed; the model is used to describe the formation of dust tails and neutral comae as well as for the interpretation of observations of a number of comets, in particular the formation of strip structures;
  • the internal sources of energy in cometary nuclei was investigated, the problems of heat capacity of water ice at low temperatures, sublimation of H2O, CO, and CO2 ices from the surface of a cometary nucleus, the transport of solar radiation through a dust coma with a nonlinear attenuation coefficient were studied;
  • a few fundamentally new ideas were introduced in physics of comets. Among them is the theory of two-layered cometary nuclei, the idea of ion-molecular clusters as an internal source of energy in comet nuclei, the theory of crater formation at nucleus surface, theory of radiation transport through cometary comae.