The population of faint Jupiter family comets near the Earth

We study the population of faint Jupiter family comets (JFCs) that approach the Earth (perihelion distances q<1.3 AUq<1.3 AU) by applying a debiasing technique to the observed sample. We found for the debiased cumulative luminosity function (CLF) of absolute total magnitudes H10H10 a bimodal distribution in which brighter comets (H10≲9H10≲9) follow a linear relation with a steep slope α=0.65±0.14α=0.65±0.14, while fainter comets follow a much shallower slope α=0.25±0.06α=0.25±0.06 down to H10∼18H10∼18. The slope can be pushed up to α=0.35±0.09α=0.35±0.09 if a second break in the H10H10 distribution to a much shallower slope is introduced at H10∼16H10∼16. We estimate a population of about 103 faint JFCs with q<1.3 AUq<1.3 AU and 10