Observation and theory of the radar aurora

Thesis/Dissertation · Mon Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1990

OSTI ID:5391804

Sahr, J D

Plasma density irregularities occurring near the Aurora Borealis cause scattering of HF, VHF, and UHF radio waves. Analysis of the resulting radar signal provides great detail about the spatial and temporal characteristics of these auroral E region irregularities. Observations are presented of the radar aurora from recent campaigns in northern Sweden. After reviewing the basic theory and observations of auroral electrojet irregularities, a simple nonlinear fluid theory of electrojet ion-acoustic waves is introduced, and reduced to a form of the three-wave interaction equations. This theory provides a simple mechanism for excitation of linearly stable waves at large aspect and flow angles, as well as a prediction of the power spectra that a coherent scatter radar should observe. In addition, this theory may be able to account for type 3 waves without resorting to ion gyro modes, such as the electrostatic ion-cyclotron wave. During the course of the research a simple new radar transmitting mode and signal processing algorithm was generated which very simply solves a frequency aliasing problem that often occurs in CUPRI auroral radar studies. Several new radar data analysis routines were developed, including the principally cross-beam image and scatter plots of the second versus first moments of the power spectrum of the irregularities. Analysis of vertical interferometer data shows that type 3 waves originate at ordinary electrojet altitudes, not in the upper E region, from which it is concluded that the electrostatic ion-cyclotron mode does not generate type 3 waves. The measured height of type 3 waves and other spectral analyses provide support for the pure ion-acoustic theory of type 3 waves. Suggestions are offered for hardware improvements to the CUPRI radar, new experiments to test new and existing theories.

• Research Organization: Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
• OSTI ID: 5391804
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640201* -- Atmospheric Physics-- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ALGORITHMS
CURRENTS
DATA
E REGION
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELECTRIC CURRENTS
ELECTROJETS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
INFORMATION
ION ACOUSTIC WAVES
ION WAVES
IONOSPHERE
MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NUMERICAL DATA
PLANETARY IONOSPHERES
PLASMA DENSITY
PLASMA WAVES
RADAR
RANGE FINDERS
SCATTERING
VARIATIONS