The mass distributions of meteoroids and asteroids

Jones, J.

doi:10.1139/p68-138

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Typical meteor trails are an order of magnitude larger than the first Fresnel zone and hence the scattering point may fall randomly along the ionization profile, depending on the scattering geometry. In a statistical sense, it has been previously shown (Jones 1968;McIntosh & Simek 1969;Blaauw et al 2011;) that the amplitude distribution can be used as a proxy for the initial meteoroid mass such that the distribution of radar echo amplitudes follows…”

Section: Measuring Meteoroid Mass Indices With Radar: Theoretical Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The net effect is that the measured mass index is lower than the true mass index. Both Jones (1968) and McIntosh & Simek (1969) recognized this bias and attempted to make corrections based on estimates of the initial radius that was then available and assuming single body ablation. They found that in some cases the correction from apparent to true mass index could be as much as +0.5, a significant difference.…”

Section: Measuring Meteoroid Mass Indices With Radar: Theoretical Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In most cases, echoes with large radii relative to the radar wavelength go entirely undetected. One aspect of this effect is that even echoes that are detected will have their amplitudes damped relative to trails of the same electron line density with no initial radius and this may affect the apparent mass index (Jones 1968). The finite-velocity effect (Ceplecha et al 1998) has a similar attenuation on forming trails, but is generally smaller in magnitude than the initial radius effect for CMOR and is ignored here (Campbell-Brown & Jones 2003).…”

Section: Bias Owing To Initial Trail Radius Effect On Mass Index Measmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The finite-velocity effect (Ceplecha et al 1998) has a similar attenuation on forming trails, but is generally smaller in magnitude than the initial radius effect for CMOR and is ignored here (Campbell-Brown & Jones 2003). Previous work has suggested theoretical corrections for apparent mass indices based on initial radius attenuation (Jones 1968;McIntosh & Simek 1969) but were based on single-body (non-fragmenting) assumptions about ablation. The results of these studies suggested that the apparent mass index would be an underestimate of the true mass index (possibly by as much as 0.5), primarily due to initial radius effects.…”

Section: Bias Owing To Initial Trail Radius Effect On Mass Index Measmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…where the exponent s, the differential mass index is typically between 1.5 − 2.5 (e.g. Jones 1968). Integrating Eq.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A reproducible method to determine the meteoroid mass index

Pokorný

Brown

2016

A&A

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Context. The determination of meteoroid mass indices is central to flux measurements and evolutionary studies of meteoroid populations. However, different authors use different approaches to fit observed data, making results difficult to reproduce and the resulting uncertainties difficult to justify. The real, physical, uncertainties are usually an order of magnitude higher than the reported values. Aims. We aim to develop a fully automated method that will measure meteoroid mass indices and associated uncertainty. We validate our method on large radar and optical datasets and compare results to obtain a best estimate of the true meteoroid mass index. Methods. Using MultiNest, a Bayesian inference tool that calculates the evidence and explores the parameter space, we search for the best fit of cumulative number vs. mass distributions in a four-dimensional space of variables (a, b, X 1 , X 2 ). We explore biases in meteor echo distributions using optical meteor data as a calibration dataset to establish the systematic offset in measured mass index values. Results. Our best estimate for the average de-biased mass index for the sporadic meteoroid complex, as measured by radar appropriate to the mass range 10 −3 > m > 10 −5 g, was s = −2.10 ± 0.08. Optical data in the 10 −1 > m > 10 −3 g range, with the shower meteors removed, produced s = −2.08 ± 0.08. We find the mass index used by Grün et al. (1985) is substantially larger than we measure in the 10 −4 < m < 10 −1 g range.

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Section: Measuring Meteoroid Mass Indices With Radar: Theoretical Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Measuring Meteoroid Mass Indices With Radar: Theoretical Conmentioning

confidence: 99%