Meteoroid stream identification: a new approach -- I. Theory

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

We introduce a new approach to meteoroid stream identi®cation, based on a distance function involving four geocentric quantities that are directly linked to observations; the new distance function is thus de®ned in a space that has as many dimensions as the number of independently measured physical quantities, at variance from the conventional orbital similarity criterion of Southworth & Hawkins.Two of the new variables turn out to be near-invariant with respect to the principal secular perturbation affecting meteoroid orbits, the one associated with the cycle of q.