Optical and Radio Frequency Diagnostics of the Ionosphere over the Sura Facility: Review of Results

• Date: 2013
• Main Authors: Kagan, L. M., Nicolls, M. J., Kelley, M. C., Frolov, V. L., Belikovich, V. V., Bakhmet’eva, N. V., Komrakov, G. P., Nedzvetski, D. I., Uryadov, V. P., Yampolski, Yu. M., Galushko, V. G., Koloskov, A. V., Zalizovski, A. V., Kascheev, S. B., Blagoveshenskaya, N. F., Kornienko, V. A., Borisova, T. D., Gurevich, A. V., Vertogradov, G. G., Vertogradov, V. G., Trondsen, T. S., Donovan, E.
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Видавничий дім «Академперіодика» 2013
• Online Access: http://rpra-journal.org.ua/index.php/ra/article/view/641
• Journal Title: Radio physics and radio astronomy

We give an overview of the design and results of the optical-backscatter-heating campaign which we conducted at the Sura facility near Nizhniy Novgorod, Russia on August 10-20, 2004. This campaign was the first to combine optical observations with simultaneous plasma diagnostics by the method of artificial periodic irregularities and with multi-position backscatter measurements and is an example of the clustering of instruments for the purpose of enhancing research results. Some of the results of the campaign have been published in a special issue of Radiophysics and Quantum Electronics and in Physical Review Letters and will only be summarized here. New results include offset of the optical emissions by 1-2° from magnetic zenith; broadening of the backscatter spectrum for heating at the fourth harmonic of the electron gyro frequency; observation of self-scattered signals at the second harmonic of the heater frequency; first observations of vector plasma drift/electric field measurements using field-aligned irregularities as tracers; verifying the refractive index mechanism for the Doppler shift of self-scattered signals and first observations of synchronized variations in self-scattered and backscattered signals. The electric field observations confirm that the ionosphere over a mid-latitude site such as SURA can be affected by high latitude processes.