Plasma physics and elemental composition of a Leonid meteor: Application of a complex plasma radiation model.

<p>The visible spectrum of a bright Leonid bolide was recorded and analyzed by fitting the parameters of a newly developed numerical plasma model. In this procedure, elemental composition, electron density, plasma temperature, and the density of the heavy particles were extracted from the observed spectrum. The model introduced in this study involves self-absorption and takes into account the effects of the non-homogeneous meteoric plasma on the observed emission spectra using a simple radiative transfer model.</p> <p>The research was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (projects nos. 18-27653S, 21-11366S and 20-10591J) and partially Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 19-52-26006). Department of Spectroscopy is supported by the ERDF/ESF "Centre of Advanced Applied Sciences" project no. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000778.</p>