A Deep Search for Emission from “Rock Comet” (3200) Phaethon at 1 au

We present a deep imaging and spectroscopic search for emission from (3200) Phaethon, a large near-Earth asteroid that appears to be the parent of the strong Geminid meteoroid stream, using the 4.3 m Lowell Discovery Telescope. Observations were conducted on 2017 December 14-18 when Phaethon passed only 0.07 au from the Earth. We determine the $3\sigma$ upper level of dust and CN production rates to be 0.007-0.2 $\mathrm{kg~s^{-1}}$ and $2.3\times10^{22}~\mathrm{molecule~s^{-1}}$ through narrowband imaging. A search in broadband images taken through the SDSS $r'$ filter shows no 100-m-class fragments in Phaethon's vicinity. A deeper, but star-contaminated search also shows no sign of fragments down to 15 m. Optical spectroscopy of Phaethon and comet C/2017 O1 (ASASSN) as comparison confirms the absence of cometary emission lines from Phaethon and yields $3\sigma$ upper levels of CN, C$_2$ and C$_3$ of $\sim10^{24}$-$10^{25} \mathrm{molecule~s^{-1}}$, 2 orders of magnitude higher than the CN constraint placed by narrowband imaging, due to the much narrower on-sky aperture of the spectrographic slit. We show that narrowband imaging could provide an efficient way to look for weak gas emission from near-extinct bodies near the Earth, though these observations require careful interpretation. Assuming Phaethon's behavior is unchanged, our analysis shows that the DESTINY$^+$ mission, currently planning to explore Phaethon in 2026, may not be able to directly detect a gas coma.