# Luminous Efficiency Estimates of Meteors -I. Uncertainty analysis

## TL;DR

This paper analyzes the uncertainty in measuring meteor luminous efficiency, proposing a method using exponential fits to improve mass estimations of meteoroids from meteor observations.

## Contribution

It introduces an uncertainty analysis framework for meteor luminous efficiency and suggests a new method using exponential fits to better estimate it from observational data.

## Key findings

- Two-term exponential fit accurately reproduces simulated luminous efficiencies
- Uncertainty analysis highlights variability in luminous efficiency estimates
- Proposed method can improve meteoroid mass calculations

## Abstract

The luminous efficiency of meteors is poorly known, but critical for determining the meteoroid mass. We present an uncertainty analysis of the luminous efficiency as determined by the classical ablation equations, and suggest a possible method for determining the luminous efficiency of real meteor events. We find that a two-term exponential fit to simulated lag data is able to reproduce simulated luminous efficiencies reasonably well.