Dust mass loss rate for short period comets. The black symbols are for single measurements, the black thin vertical lines correspond to a range assigned to the comet, depending on its classification: “typical” or “depleted”, based on their abundances in carbon-chain species (following the classification by A’Hearn et al. 1985). Values have been found in literature for comets 2P/Encke (Epifani et al. 2001), 4P/Faye (Lamy et al. 2009), 10P/Tempel 2 (Lamy et al. 2009), 17P/Holmes (Lamy et al. 2009), 21P/Grigg-Skjellerup (Fulle et al. 1993), 37P/Forbes (Lamy et al. 2009), 37PForbes (Newburn & Spinrad 1985), 44P/Reinmuth 2 (Lamy et al. 2009), 46P/Wirtanen (Colangeli et al. 1998), 50P/Arend (Lamy et al. 2009), 59P/Kearns-Kwee (Lamy et al. 2009), 59P/Kearns-Kwee (Newburn & Spinrad 1985), 63P/Wild 1 (Lamy et al. 2009), 63P/Wild 1 (Colangeli et al. 1998), 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (Hanner et al. 1985; Fulle et al. 2004), 71P/Clark (Lamy et al. 2009), 84P/Giclas (Lamy et al. 2009), 103P/Hartley 2 (Epifani et al. 2001), 106P/Shuster (Lamy et al. 2009), 112P/Urata Nijima (Lamy et al. 2009), 114P/Wiseman-Skiff (Lamy et al. 2009). The thick vertical lines are for the model dust mass loss rate of comets presented in this paper, giving ranges for a grain velocity between 1 and 25 m/s. Thick blue line: 32P/Comas Solá; thick green line: 56P/Slaughter-Burnham; thick red line: 78P/Gerhels 2.