The effect of a sector boundary crossing on the cometary dust tail

Recognizing that grains in the cometary dust tail are electrically charged, we study the effect of an interplanetary sector boundary crossing on their distribution. We specifically consider Halley's comet around the time of encounter by the GIOTTO and VEGA 1 and 2 spacecrafts in March 1986. The smallest dust particles (r _g0.3 m) are strongly effected, and the projection of their distributions in a plane containing the Sun-Comet axis and normal to the orbital plane show a wavy appearance. Also, since reversals in the interplanetary magnetic field occur with a periodicity of 5 to 10 days, the spacecrafts, which follow 3 to 4 days apart are likely to encounter entirely different dust distributions at the lower end of the mass spectrum.