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Due to differences in solar illumination, a geomagnetic field line may have one footpoint in a dark ionosphere while the other ionosphere is in daylight. This may happen near the terminator under solstice conditions. In this situation, a resonant wave mode may appear which has a node in the electric field in the sunlit (high conductance) ionosphere and an antinode in the dark (low conductance) ionosphere. Thus, the length of the field line is one quarter of the wavelength of the wave, in contrast with half-wave field line resonances in which both ionospheres are nodes in the electric field. These quarter waves have resonant frequencies that are roughly a factor of 2 lower than the half-wave frequency on the field line. We have simulated these resonances using a fully three-dimensional model of ULF waves in a dipolar magnetosphere. The ionospheric conductance is modeled as a function of the solar zenith angle, and so this model can describe the change in the wave resonance frequency as the ground magnetometer station varies in local time. The results show that the quarter-wave resonances can be excited by a shock-like impulse at the dayside magnetosphere and exhibit many of the properties of the observed waves. In particular, the simulations support the notion that a conductance ratio between day and night footpoints of the field line must be greater than about 5 for the quarter waves to exist.
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On the use of ELF/VLF emissions triggered by HAARP to simulate PLHR and to study associated MLR events
Abstract A spectrogram of Power Line Harmonic Radiation (PLHR) consists of a set of lines with frequency spacing corresponding exactly to 50 or 60 Hz. It is distinct from a spectrogram of Magnetospheric Line Radiation (MLR) where the lines are not equidistant and drift in frequency. PLHR and MLR propagate in the ionosphere and the magnetosphere and are recorded by ground experiments and satellites. If the source of PLHR is evident, the origin of the MLR is still under debate and the purpose of this paper is to understand how MLR lines are formed. The ELF waves triggered by High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in the ionosphere are used to simulate lines (pulses of different lengths and different frequencies). Several receivers are utilized to survey the propagation of these pulses. The resulting waves are simultaneously recorded by ground-based experiments close to HAARP in Alaska, and by the low-altitude satellite DEMETER either above HAARP or its magnetically conjugate point. Six cases are presented which show that 2-hop echoes (pulses going back and forth in the magnetosphere) are very often observed. The pulses emitted by HAARP return in the Northern hemisphere with a time delay. A detailed spectral analysis shows that sidebands can be triggered and create elements with superposed frequency lines which drift in frequency during the propagation. These elements acting like quasi-periodic emissions are subjected to equatorial amplification and can trigger hooks and falling tones. At the end all these known physical processes lead to the formation of the observed MLR by HAARP pulses. It is shown that there is a tendency for the MLR frequencies of occurrence to be around 2 kHz although the exciting waves have been emitted at lower and higher frequencies. Graphical Abstract
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- Award ID(s):
- 2054361
- PAR ID:
- 10402780
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth, Planets and Space
- Volume:
- 74
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1880-5981
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-021-01551-9
