Kinetic Theory of Meteor Plasma in the Earth's atmosphere: Implications for Radar Head Echo

Abstract:

Every second millions of tiny meteoroids hit the Earth from space, vast majority too small to be observed visually. However, radars detect the plasma they generate and use the collected data to characterize the incoming meteoroids and the atmosphere in which they disintegrate. This diagnostics requires a detailed quantitative understanding of formation of the meteor plasma and how it interacts with the Earth's atmosphere. Fast-descending meteoroids become detectable to radars after they heat due to collisions with atmospheric molecules sufficiently and start ablating. The ablated material then collides into atmospheric molecules and forms plasma around the meteoroid. Reflection of radar pulses from this plasma produces a localized signal called a head echo often accompanied by a much longer non-specular trail (see the Figure).

Using first principles, we have developed a consistent collisional kinetic theory of the near-meteoroid plasma responsible for the radar head echo. This theory produces analytic expressions describing the ion and neutral velocity distributions along with the detailed 3-D spatial structure of the near-meteoroid plasma. These expressions predict a number of unexpected features such as shell-like velocity distributions. This theory shows that the meteoroid plasma develops over a length-scale close to the ion mean free path with a strongly non-Maxwellian velocity distribution. The spatial distribution of the plasma density shows significant deviations from a Gaussian law usually employed in head-echo modeling.

This analytical model will serve as a basis for a more accurate quantitative interpretation of radar measurements, estimates of the ionization efficiency, and should help calculate meteoroid and atmosphere parameters from radar head-echo observations. This theory could also help clarify the physical nature of electromagnetic pulses observed during recent meteor showers and associated with the passage of fast-moving meteors through the atmosphere.