NONDETECTION OF THE OH MEINEL SYSTEM IN COMET P SWIFT-TUTTLE/

We report a search for emissions from the OH Meinel system in high-res olution near-infrared spectra of comet P/Swift-Tuttle. Because of the the large cometary heliocentric velocity and high resolution of the sp ectrograph, the cometary lines should be well separated from the brigh t OH sky lines. Contrary to the findings of Tozzi et al. (1994) - who report seeing cometary OH at intensities comparable to the sky emissio ns in their low-resolution spectra - we find no OH in these spectra, w ith an upper limit of 5% the value of the night sky lines. The non-det ection of these cometary lines is consistent with theoretical calculat ions of expected emission strengths from prompt and fluorescent emissi on from cometary OH.