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J.T.T. Makinen (RSSD/ESA, The Netherlands), M.R. Combi (University of Michigan)
We have developed a temporally resolved hybrid model for the extended cometary hydrogen coma, capable of producing more physically accurate hydrogen density and Lyman-alpha intensity profiles than either Haser-like or syndyname models with a fraction of computational cost of a full Monte Carlo simulation. A single Lyman-alpha coma observation can be deconvolved to obtain a record of past water production rates if the hydrogen lifetime is known. Furthermore, a set of observations with overlapping production histories can be used to estimate the actual hydrogen lifetime.
In this presentation we have chosen suitable comets from the image archive of the SWAN Lyman-alpha instrument which has covered both solar minimum and maximum phases since its inception on 1996. These comets are used to estimate the local hydrogen lifetime and thus indirectly the local solar wind parameters.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #4
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.