• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Scholarworks@UACommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    First Time Submitters, Register Here

    Register

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    High frequency backscatter from the polar and auroral e-region ionosphere

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    Forsythe_V_2017.pdf
    Size:
    51.71Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Forsythe, Victoriya V.
    Chair
    Bristow, William
    Committee
    Conde, Mark
    Sahr, John
    Zhang, Hui
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11122/7600
    Abstract
    The Earth's ionosphere contains collisional and partially-ionized plasma. The electric field, produced by the interaction between the Earth's magnetosphere and the solar wind, drives the plasma bulk motion, also known as convection, in the F-region of the ionosphere. It can also destabilize the plasma in the E-region, producing irregularities or waves. Intermediatescale waves with wavelengths of hundreds of meters can cause scintillation and fading of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, whereas the small-scale waves (< 100 m) can scatter radar signals, making possible detection of these plasma structures and measurements of their characteristics such as their phase velocity and intensity. In this work, production of the decameter-scale (10 m) irregularities in the ionospheric E-region (100-120 km in altitude) at high latitudes is investigated both theoretically, using linear fluid theory of plasma instability processes that generate small-scale plasma waves, and experimentally, by analyzing data collected with the newly-deployed high-southern-latitude radars within the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN). The theoretical part of this work focuses on symmetry properties of the general dispersion relation that describes wave propagation in the collisional plasma in the two-stream and gradient-drift instability regimes. The instability growth rate and phase velocity are examined under the presence of a background parallel electric field, whose influence is demonstrated to break the spatial symmetry of the wave propagation patterns. In the observational part of this thesis, a novel dual radar setup is used to examine E-region irregularities in the magnetic polar cap by probing the E-region along the same line from opposite directions. The phase velocity analysis together with raytracing simulations demonstrated that, in the polar cap, the radar backscatter is primarily controlled by the plasma density conditions. In particular, when the E-region layer is strong and stratified, the radar backscatter properties are controlled by the convection velocity, whereas for a tilted E-layer, the height and aspect angle conditions are more important. Finally, the fundamental dependence of the E-region irregularity phase velocity on the component of the plasma convection is investigated using two new SuperDARN radars at high southern latitudes where plasma convection estimates are accurately deduced from all SuperDARN radars in the southern hemisphere. Statistical analysis is presented showing that the predominance of the E-region echoes of a particular polarity is strongly dictated by the orientation of the convection plasma ow which itself has a significant asymmetry towards westward zonal flow.
    Description
    Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017
    Date
    2017-05
    Type
    Thesis
    Collections
    College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics
    Theses (Physics)

    entitlement

     
    ABOUT US|HELP|BROWSE|ADVANCED SEARCH

    The University of Alaska Fairbanks is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer and educational institution and is a part of the University of Alaska system.

    ©UAF 2013 - 2021 | Questions? ua-scholarworks@alaska.edu | Last modified: September 25, 2019

    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.