OH radio lines in comets - a review

A review of OH cometary radioastronomy from the excitation of the molecule to the detailed analysis of the line profile is presented. It is suggested that the inversion models of Despois et al. (1981) and Schleicher (1983) may be improved by taking the production rates from recent UV data (when the inversion modulus is small) once the radio vs UV discrepancies are better understood. OH radiation transfer through the coma is considered. The unresolved total integrated flux density of the OH coma can be determined by carefully mapping the OH coma using a point source calibrator. The SYMCOMET method for improving the SNR of existing profiles (in order to achieve early detections) has the advantage of suppressing the antisymmetric part of the baseline ripples or instrumental profiles. 24 references