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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 April 2016
Comet Bradfield 1987XXIX showed a well-developed split tail, which is a dust tail feature divided into two branches by a dark gap. Similar structures have been observed in several comets. The split tail of comet Seki-Lines is one of them; some authors tried to explain it by rapid dust vaporization or self-regulation model. However, these models can not explain in the case of comet Bradfield 1987s. It was suggested in our previous works that the trend of variation of position angle of the dark gap coincides well with that of the plasma tail or projected radial vector. We discuss the formation mechanisms of the split tail from the view point of dust-plasma interactions.