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Title: Association Between Meteor Radio Afterglows and Optical Persistent Trains
Abstract

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 in1010of the available power needs to be converted to radio emission in order to produce a typical MRA.

 
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Award ID(s):
1835400
NSF-PAR ID:
10449125
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics
Volume:
125
Issue:
9
ISSN:
2169-9380
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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