Broadband meter-wavelength observations of ionospheric scintillation
| Autor: | C.-F. Enell, Antti Kero, Michiel A. Brentjens, A. P. Schoenmakers, Nico Ebbendorf, M. Postila, Juha Vierinen, Markku Lehtinen, D. McKay-Bukowski, T. Grit, Mikko Orispää, Lassi Roininen, Tero Raita, T. Iinatti, M. Gerbers, William A. Coles, J-P. de Reijer, H. Meulman, Th. Ulich, Richard Fallows, P. Gruppen, Ilkka Virtanen, K. Stuurwold, M. J. Norden, Esa Turunen |
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| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
Scintillation 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy LOFAR 01 natural sciences F region Atmospheric Sciences Interstellar medium Solar wind Geophysics Interplanetary scintillation Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Pulsar Space and Planetary Science 0103 physical sciences Physics::Space Physics Ionosphere Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Astronomical and Space Sciences Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
| Zdroj: | Fallows, RA; Coles, WA; Mckay-Bukowski, D; Vierinen, J; Virtanen, II; Postila, M; et al.(2015). Broadband meter-wavelength observations of ionospheric scintillation. Journal of Geophysical Research A: Space Physics. doi: 10.1002/2014JA020406. UC San Diego: Retrieved from: http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/60p332km |
| Popis: | Intensity scintillations of cosmic radio sources are used to study astrophysical plasmas like the ionosphere, the solar wind, and the interstellar medium. Normally these observations are relatively narrow band. With Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) technology at the Kilpisj\"arvi Atmospheric Imaging Receiver Array (KAIRA) station in northern Finland we have observed scintillations over a 3 octave bandwidth. ``Parabolic arcs'', which were discovered in interstellar scintillations of pulsars, can provide precise estimates of the distance and velocity of the scattering plasma. Here we report the first observations of such arcs in the ionosphere and the first broad-band observations of arcs anywhere, raising hopes that study of the phenomenon may similarly improve the analysis of ionospheric scintillations. These observations were made of the strong natural radio source Cygnus-A and covered the entire 30-250\,MHz band of KAIRA. Well-defined parabolic arcs were seen early in the observations, before transit, and disappeared after transit although scintillations continued to be obvious during the entire observation. We show that this can be attributed to the structure of Cygnus-A. Initial results from modeling these scintillation arcs are consistent with simultaneous ionospheric soundings taken with other instruments, and indicate that scattering is most likely to be associated more with the topside ionosphere than the F-region peak altitude. Further modeling and possible extension to interferometric observations, using international LOFAR stations, are discussed. Comment: 11 pages, 17 figures |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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