Absolute magnitude of small cosmic dust particles

Abstract

ABSTRACT Agglomerated debris particles are realistic model cosmic dust particles that reproduce their highly irregular and fluffy morphology. We compute the absolute magnitude of these model particles in the broad-band filters B, V, R, and I from the widely used Johnson–Cousins photometric system. These data are aimed at providing simple quantitative interpretation of brightness of a cloud of cosmic dust, such as cometary coma, zodiacal light, lunar horizon glow, etc. Using this information, number of dust particles can be estimated from the apparent magnitude of the cloud and therefore the total volume of dust. It is significant that the smallest volume of dust is achieved using submicron particles.