Diffusion and structure of meteor trails in the E-region ionosphere

Details Diffusion and structure of meteor trails in the E-region ionosphere Diffusion and structure of meteor trails in the E-region ionosphere

Oct 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003aps..dppgp1125d&link_type=abstract

American Physical Society, 45th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics, October 27-31, 2003, Albuquerque, New Mexico,

Physics

Plasma Physics

Scientific paper

A meteoroid penetrating the Earth's ionosphere leaves behind a pronounced trail of dense plasma which disperses with time. The dynamical theory of meteor trail diffusion was developed starting in the 1960s (e.g., [1-3]). More recently, Robson [4] attempted to revise the theory assuming different physical assumptions and obtained different results. To resolve the controversy, we decided to revisit this problem. We found that the 'new' approach by Robson [4] is incorrect because he assumed that the components of the ion and electron fluxes along the magnetic field are equal. This caused his resulting electric field to have a non-zero curl. The previous studies [1-3] were correct but incomplete. In this paper, we extend the theory of meteor trail diffusion by including the current closure in the background ionosphere, kinetic factors, weak inhomogeneities along the trail axis, etc. A quantitative knowledge of meteor trail structure and the spatial distribution of its ambipolar electric fields has important implications for understanding of plasma instabilities responsible for the observed non-specular radar echoes [5]. 1. T. R. Kaiser et al., Planet. Space Sci., 17, 519 (1969); 2. W. M. Pickering and D. W. Windle, Planet. Space Sci., 18, 1153 (1970); 3. W. Jones, Planet. Space Sci., 39, 1283 (1991); 4. R. E. Robson, Phys. Rev. E, 63, 026404 (2001); 5. M. Oppenheim et al., J. Geophys. Res., 108, 7-1 (2003).

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