Optical observations of meteors generating infrasound-I: Acoustic signal identification and phenomenology

We analyse infrasound signals from 71 bright meteors/fireballs simultaneously detected by video to investigate the phenomenology and characteristics of meteor-generated near-field infrasound (<300 km) and shock production. A taxonomy for meteor generated infrasound signal classification has been developed using the time-pressure signal of the infrasound arrivals. Based on the location along the meteor trail where the infrasound signal originates, we find most signals are associated with cylindrical shocks, with about a quarter of events evidencing spherical shocks associated with fragmentation episodes and optical flares. The video data indicate that all events with ray launch angles >117° from the trajectory heading are most likely generated by a spherical shock, while infrasound produced by the meteors with ray launch angles ≤117° can be attributed to both a cylindrical line source and a spherical shock. We find that meteors preferentially produce infrasound toward the end of their trails with a smaller number showing a preference for mid-trail production. Meteors producing multiple infrasound arrivals show a strong infrasound source height skewness to the end of trails and are much more likely to be associated with optical flares. We find that about 1% of all our optically-recorded meteors have associated detected infrasound and estimate that regional meteor infrasound events should occur on the order of once per week and dominate in numbers over infrasound associated with more energetic (but rarer) bolides. While a significant fraction of our meteors generating infrasound (~1/4 of single arrivals) are produced by fragmentation events, we find no instances where acoustic radiation is detectable more than about 60° beyond the ballistic regime at our meteoroid sizes (grams to tens of kilograms) emphasizing the strong anisotropy in acoustic radiation for meteors which are dominated by cylindrical line source geometry, even in the presence of fragmentation.