A reference meteor magnitude for intercomparable fluxes

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new reference meteor magnitude that better represents observed meteors and reduces dependence on population indices, improving the comparability of flux measurements across different observation networks.

Contribution

It introduces an alternative reference magnitude for meteors that minimizes flux dependence on population indices and demonstrates its application to Orionid meteor flux data.

Findings

New reference magnitude reduces flux dependence on population index.

Application to Orionid data shows improved flux synthesis.

Facilitates comparison of meteor flux measurements across networks.

Abstract

The rate at which meteors pass through Earth's atmosphere has been measured or estimated many times over; existing flux measurements span at least 12 astronomical magnitudes, or roughly five decades in mass. Unfortunately, the common practice of scaling flux to a universal reference magnitude of +6.5 tends to collapse the magnitude or mass dimension. Furthermore, results from different observation networks can appear discrepant due solely to the use of different assumed population indices, and readers cannot resolve this discrepancy without access to magnitude data. We present an alternate choice of reference magnitude that is representative of the observed meteors and minimizes the dependence of flux on population index. We apply this choice to measurements of recent Orionid meteor shower fluxes to illustrate its usefulness for synthesizing independent flux measurements.