The effects of comet ejection characteristics on meteoroid stream cross-section profiles

Leonid storms during the 1998–2002 return exhibited a strongly peaked “Lorentzian” profile as a function of Earth’s position in its path around the Sun (Jenniskens 2006, Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets, Cambridge Univ Press, ch.15). That shape and the predicted level of activity for older dust trails does not match simulations of the stream of debris ejected from comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle by a standard comet ejection model and its subsequent dynamical evolution and interaction with Earth. Possible explanations for the discrepancies include a gradual destruction of larger meteoroids into smaller ones during the time between ejection from the source comet and interaction with Earth, or discrepancies in the comet ejection model.

We have revived the Pintem2 package (Vaubaillon 2005a, 2005b, A&A) for simulating meteoroid trajectories from source comet ejection and forward in time. In this talk, we will show correlations between the along-track profile of various Leonid streams and the time and velocity of each meteoroid’s ejection from the source comet. We will investigate whether physically plausible patterns in ejection characteristics can help simulated meteor stream profiles to better match observations.