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Association Between Meteor Radio Afterglows and Optical Persistent Trains
Author(s) -
Obenberger K. S.,
Holmes J. M.,
Ard S. G.,
Dowell J.,
Shuman N. S.,
Taylor G. B.,
Varghese S. S.,
Viggiano A. A.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: space physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-9402
pISSN - 2169-9380
DOI - 10.1029/2020ja028053
Subject(s) - mras , meteor (satellite) , physics , optics , meteorology , vector control , quantum mechanics , voltage , induction motor
This paper presents the first observed association between meteor radio afterglows (MRAs) and persistent trains (PTs) and provides the first evidence of a link between these two phenomena. Coobservations of four meteor trails (trains) from the Long Wavelength Array (LWA) telescopes in New Mexico and the Widefield Persistent Train (WiPT) camera associate the long‐lasting (tens of seconds), self‐generated radio emission known as MRAs with the long‐lasting (tens of minutes) optical emissions known as PTs. Each of the four MRAs presented in this paper were spatially and temporally coincident with a PT. In one case, the MRA follows a relatively small ( ≤ 400 m × 400 m) noticeably bright region (knot) of emission within the PT, whereas the other three cases were associated with broader regions of PT activity. As PTs are thought to be driven by exothermic chemical reactions between atmospheric oxygen and ablation products, we show that the same reactions, specifically those involving anions, may produce the necessary suprathermal electrons to power MRAs. We show that only one part in ∼ 10 10 of the available power needs to be converted to radio emission in order to produce a typical MRA.