The Geminid meteor shower radiant: a mathematical model

The origin of the Geminid meteoroid stream and its parent body the asteroid (3200) Phaethon is still under discussion. The observed bimodal activity profile of the Geminid shower agrees with a cometary scheme of the stream formation. We show that the radiant areas for meteors of different magnitudes may also be used to provide arguments supporting or undermining the cometary hypothesis. We used semi-analytic and numerical models of the stream. The resulting model radiants for meteors of various magnitudes (masses) have peculiar patterns that might be detected in a real shower.