Luminous efficiency estimates of meteors -II. Application to Canadian Automated Meteor Observatory meteor events

TL;DR

This study estimates meteoroid luminous efficiency using high-resolution data, revealing low efficiencies for non-fragmenting meteors and higher values for fragmenting ones, with a weak inverse relation to meteoroid size.

Contribution

It provides the most recent luminous efficiency estimates based on direct comparison of dynamic and photometric masses using modern instruments.

Findings

Most non-fragmenting meteoroids have luminous efficiencies below 1%.

Fragmenting meteoroids show efficiencies up to a few tens of percent.

Luminous efficiency tends to decrease with increasing meteoroid mass.

Abstract

Luminous efficiency is a necessary parameter for determining meteoroid mass from optical emission. Despite this importance, it is very poorly known, with previous results varying by up to two orders of magnitude for a given speed. We present the most recent study of luminous efficiency values determined with modern high-resolution instruments, by directly comparing dynamic and photometric meteoroid masses. Fifteen non-fragmenting meteoroids were used, with a further five clearly fragmenting events for comparison. Twelve of the fifteen non-fragmenting meteoroids had luminous efficiencies less than 1%, while the fragmenting meteoroids had upper limits of a few tens of percent. No clear trend with speed was seen, but there was a weak negative trend of luminous efficiency on meteoroid mass, implying that smaller meteoroids radiate more efficiently.