Source-Sink Equilibrium Model for Kuiper Belt Small Grain Population, and Far-IR Search in COBE DIRBE Data
Session 43 -- SL-9, Comets, Solar System
Display presentation, Tuesday, 10, 1995, 9:20am - 6:30pm

## [43.10] Source-Sink Equilibrium Model for Kuiper Belt Small Grain Population, and Far-IR Search in COBE DIRBE Data

A.Dasgupta, D.E.Backman (Franklin and Marshall College)

We have calculated models for the expected small-grain population of the Kuiper Belt in equilibrium between production by collisions of comet nuclei and destruction by processes of Poynting-Robertson drag, mutual collisions, radiation pressure ejection, and sublimation. The surface brightness of thermal radiation from these grains at a wavelength of 60 $\mu$m viewed from earth would be less than, but comparable to, that observed from foreground zodiacal dust if the comet parent population has mass of order 0.1 $M_{\earth}$, given simple assumptions about the comets' size, spatial distribution, material density, and fragment size spectrum. We will also present preliminary results from a search in the COBE DIRBE data for emission which might be attributable to material in the plane of the solar system beyond Neptune/Pluto.