Post-perihelion dust activity and a candidate icy-grain halo in long-period comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan--ATLAS)

Abstract

We analyze the post-perihelion coma of the Great Comet of 2024, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan--ATLAS) to characterize dust activity and assess the contribution of sublimating icy grains to a candidate near-nucleus halo. Using archival Zwicky Transient Facility images from 15 February to 26 May 2025, we performed aperture photometry within a fixed projected radius of 40,000 km and derived azimuthally averaged surface-brightness profiles. The comet faded from 12.86 to 14.77 mag as heliocentric distance increased from 2.64 to 3.90 au, with two short-lived brightenings. The effective dust cross section decreased by a factor of 2.4, following $C_{\rm e}\propto r_{\rm h}^{-3.1}$, while the dust mass production rate scaled as $\dot{M}_{\rm d}\propto r_{\rm h}^{-3.41}$, consistent with a contribution from water-ice-driven activity. Extrapolating the fitted relation to perihelion implies a model-dependent cumulative dust mass loss of $3.0\times10^{11}$ kg, equivalent to a globally averaged erosion depth of $\sim1.4$ m for an assumed nucleus radius of 5.9 km. Coma profiles were shallower than the canonical steady-state expectation, suggesting radial changes in dust distribution or scattering properties, possibly due to delayed aggregate fragmentation. A persistent central brightness excess, coincident with less-red inner-coma colors, is consistent with an icy-grain halo. Among the models explored, icy grains of radius $\sim10~μ$m with carbon fraction $\sim0.1\%$ yield halo radii comparable to those observed during enhanced activity on 21--25 February 2025, with grain lifetimes of $2.8\times10^5$--$3.2\times10^5$ s. No single fixed grain size and composition reproduces the full halo evolution; an increasing carbon fraction could explain the broad halo-radius trend, possibly reflecting progressive refractory enrichment of near-surface material.