Grism Spectroscopy of Comet Lulin Swift UVOT Grism Spectroscopy of Comets: A First Application to C/2007 N3 (Lulin) D. Bodewits1,2, G. L. Villanueva2,3, M. J. Mumma2, W. B. Landsman4, J. A. Carter5, and A. M. Read5 Submitted to the Astronomical Journal on 16th February, 2010 Revised version October 21st, 2010 1 NASA Postdoctoral Fellow,
[email protected] 2 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar System Exploration Division, Mailstop 690.3, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA 3 Dept. of Physics, Catholic University of America, Washington DC 20064, USA 4 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Astrophysics Science Division, Mailstop 667, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA 5 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Leicester University, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK 8 figures, 4 tables Key words: Comets: Individual (C/2007 N3 (Lulin)) – Methods: Data Analysis – Techniques: Image Spectroscopy – Ultraviolet: planetary systems Abstract We observed comet C/2007 N3 (Lulin) twice on UT 28 January 2009, using the UV grism of the Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT) on board the Swift Gamma Ray Burst space observatory. Grism spectroscopy provides spatially resolved spectroscopy over large apertures for faint objects. We developed a novel methodology to analyze grism observations of comets, and applied a Haser comet model to extract production rates of OH, CS, NH, CN, C3, C2, and dust. The water production rates retrieved from two visits on this date were 6.7 ± 0.7 and 7.9 ± 0.7 x 1028 molecules s-1, respectively. Jets were sought (but not found) in the white-light and ‘OH’ images reported here, suggesting that the jets reported by Knight and Schleicher (2009) are unique to CN.