Underdense, overdense, and Bragg scattering in radar meteors

Many models have been proposed to interpret the radar scattering represented in the radar meteor head- and trail-echoes. These models often invoke the concepts of “overdense” versus “underdense” (relative to plasma frequency) scattering and of Bragg scattering or filtering in describing details of the scattering structure. We argue that, while appropriate to volume filled incoherent scattering, Bragg scattering is of limited use in interpretation of radar meteors. We also present a stricter definition of underdense versus overdense scattering in terms of the net scattered E-field in the plasma relative to the incident E-field. We give modeling examples supporting this approach.