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L.M. Woodney, M.F. A'Hearn (University of Maryland), Imke de Pater, J.R. Forster (UC, Berkeley), Y.-J. Kuan (Academia Sinica), R Meier (University of Maryland), Patrick Palmer (Univeristy of Chicago), L.E. Snyder, J. M. Veal (University of Illinois), M.C.H. Wright (UC, Berkeley)
The sudden appearance and close approach to Earth of the bright Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) in early 1996, followed by the extremely active Comet Hale-Bopp (C/1995 O1) which reached perihelion approximately one year later, has provided an excellent opportunity to study cometary chemistry. In this paper we concentrate on understanding the properties and nuclear abundances of one family of molecules, those which contain sulfur. This is the first time we can attempt to study the entire group of sulfur bearing molecules. Models of the sulfur coma have thus far largely been based on observations of the daughter products CS and atomic sulfur made with the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite, coupled with radio observations of CS and H2S in several recent comets. With the loss of IUE, millimeter observations have become the best way to study sulfur chemistry in comets.
Four new sulfur bearing species were discovered in C/Hale-Bopp and C/Hyakutake, three of them parent species, so that it is now possible to build a much more complete picture of the sulfur budget in comets.
Additionally, millimeter interferometry was used to obtain the first high resolution maps of CS, yielding new information about its spatial distribution. We will present results from mapping CS in C/Hale-Bopp with the BIMA Array (Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association), as well as results from our modeling of the sulfur budget.