Source, Evolutin, and Decay of F-Region Irregularities at Polar and Equatorial Latitudes

当电离层均匀时，它有效地反射无线电波，使长距离无线电通信成为可能。它还可以在地面和航天器之间传输微波，几乎没有扰动。然而，电离层等离子体经常是湍流的，具有许多尺度的不规则性，因此它反射无线电波很差，并导致地面到航天器的微波链路的闪烁。在赤道附近，当100公里大小的低密度等离子体气泡在高密度等离子体中上升时，不规则现象就开始了，这是一种相当于雷暴单体形成的不稳定机制。这种和其他更多正弦波型不规则性的触发机制尚未确定。这笔赠款用于研究违规行为的性质和触发机制。这些都是重要的等离子体物理问题，与通信链路质量的预测有关。

When the ionosphere is uniform it reflects radio waves efficiently and makes possible long distance radio communication. It also transmits microwaves between ground and spacecraft with little perturbation. However, the ionospheric plasma is often turbulent with irregularities of many scale sizes, and as such it reflects radio waves poorly and causes scintillation of the ground to spacecraft microwave links. Near the equator the irregularities begin as 100km scale size bubbles of low density plasma rising through the high density plasma, in an instability mechanism equivalent to that of thunderstorm cell formation. The triggering mechanism for this and other more sinusoidal wave type irregularities have not been determined. This grant is for research on the nature of the irregularities and the triggering mechanisms. These are important plasma physics problems and have relevance to the prediction of the quality of communication links.