D-A-CH: International Comet Experiments

在过去的几十年里，非常成功的太空任务极大地提高了我们对彗星起源和活动的认识。这些空间飞行任务得到了各种不同的理论模型和密集的观测活动的支持。然而，地面实验室实验的支持一直是有限的，尽管它们可以为彗星的物理提供更深层次的见解。到目前为止进行的实验室实验对了解类似彗星条件下的冰尘样本的性质非常有用。然而，由于我们现在有几次飞越任务的数据，以及两年多来护送一颗彗星从活动开始到近日点(活动最大值)及以后的数据，气体和尘埃产生的图景已经改变。这些新的见解对使用逼真的样品材料进行最先进的彗星模拟实验所需的要求产生了影响。因此，必须进行新一代地面实验室实验，以解释以前的空间飞行任务(特别是罗塞塔飞行任务)收集的数据，并支持未来的彗星或太阳系其他冰体的空间飞行任务。这些实验需要广泛的设备和专业知识来表征模拟样品的热、物理和光学性质以及它们在模拟彗星活动期间的行为。因此，这些问题只能通过由几个实验室贡献的多国努力来解决。这项提议的目标是通过在国际框架内进行最先进的实验室实验并辅之以理论模型来更好地了解彗星活动的基本原理。这将通过设计、执行和评估一系列实验来完成，以研究彗星模拟材料的物理性质和活动行为。这些实验的目标是设计科学相关和现实的测试场景，可以用来研究与彗星活动相关的物理过程(这个项目并不是试图在实验室中完美地复制彗核)。此外，该项目旨在为最先进的彗星模拟样品制备提供指导方针，该指南将基于建议者的专业知识，并在该项目的框架内扩展。为了实现这些目标，来自德国(D)、奥地利(A)和瑞士(CH)的科学家将通过结合他们的专业知识和实验室设备(D-A-CH小组)进行密切合作。这一合作提供了进行各种具有重要科学意义但规模较小的实验的可能性，最终目标是建立一个装备精良的模拟室(通过汇集D-A-CH小组现有的科学设备)，这将使研究彗星活动的各个方面成为可能。

Over the past few decades, very successful space missions have significantly improved our knowledge of the origin and activity of comets. These space missions have been supported by a variety of different theoretical models and intensive observational campaigns. However, the support from ground-based laboratory experiments has been limited, although they can provide deeper insights into the physics of comets. The laboratory experiments performed so far were very useful to understand the nature of ice-dust samples under cometary-like conditions. However, since we have now data from several fly-by missions and more than two years of escorting a comet from the onset of activity throughout the perihelion (activity maximum) and beyond, the picture of gas and dust production has changed. These new insights have impact on the requirements needed to carry out state-of-the art comet simulation experiments with realistic sample materials. Thus, a new generation of ground-based laboratory experiments is mandatory to interpret the data gathered by previous space missions (especially by the Rosetta mission) and to support future space missions to comets, or to other icy bodies in the Solar System. These experiments require a broad spectrum of facilities and expertise to characterize the thermal, physical and optical properties of the analogue samples and their behavior during simulated cometary activity. As such they can only be addressed by a multi-national effort with contributions from several laboratories.The objective of this proposal is to better understand the fundamentals of cometary activity by performing state-of-the art laboratory experiments, accompanied by theoretical modeling, in an international framework. This will be done by designing, performing and evaluating a series of experiments to study the physical properties and activity behavior of comet analogue materials. The goal of these experiments is to design scientifically relevant and realistic test scenarios, which can be used to investigate the physical processes associated with comet activity (this project is not an attempt to perfectly reproduce a cometary nucleus in the laboratory). Additionally, this project aims at providing a guideline for state-of-the art cometary analogue sample preparation, which will be based on the expert knowledge of the proposers, extended in the framework of this project.In order to achieve these goals, scientists from Germany (D), Austria (A) and Switzerland (CH) will closely collaborate by joining together their expertise and laboratory equipment (D-A-CH group). This collaboration provides the possibility to perform a large variety of scientifically important, but small-scaled, experiments with the ultimate goal to construct a well-equipped simulation chamber (by bringing together the already available scientific equipment of the D-A-CH group), which will allow studying various aspects of comet activity.