An investigation into potential causes of the anomalistic feature observed by the Rosetta Alice spectrograph around 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

The Alice far-ultraviolet spectrograph in operation around the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on the Rosetta spacecraft experiences an anomalistic feature (AF) that is ubiquitous at comet separations less than 450 km. This feature is highly temporally variable and displays no relation to any studied parameters with the exception of comet separation. This paper tests several possible causes with simulations and finds that positive ions produce a partial explanation for the anomaly, but still finds no definitive source of the AF.