CAREER: Inter-Hemispheric Magnetic Conjugacy of Ionospheric Convection

这是一个为期五年的学院早期职业发展项目，旨在开展以半球间空间天气联系为主题的综合研究和教育活动。研究工作的一个首要科学目标是调查闭合磁力线上电离层不规则和对流的半球间磁共轭。这将主要基于美国国家科学基金会支持的南北半球超级DARN雷达网络的同时测量。将对北半球和南半球极光和中纬度地区现有SuperDARN雷达20多年的数据进行统计和个案研究分析。特别强调的是比较极光带和亚极光电离层之间的共轭程度。SuperDARN最近扩展到中纬度，为研究亚极光电离层的半球间共轭提供了新的能力，包括来自福克兰群岛和沃洛普斯雷达的独特的20个月综合测量数据集。这项研究工作将为研究生学位和本科生各种自给自足的研究项目奠定基础。该项目的大量额外教育和外联活动旨在加强学生在弗吉尼亚理工学院的本科教育和大学前夏令营中接触空间科学研究和相关工程的机会。将把半球间空间气象联系的中心概念纳入本科生课程和夏令营活动。大学预科生和本科生将使用新购买的手持无线电接收设备来搜索自然的甚低频信号(如sferics、tWeek和哨声)，并了解半球间的空间天气现象。本科生将被聘为夏令营活动的助教。购买研究级ELF/VLF接收器将扩大弗吉尼亚理工大学的无线电科学活动，该仪器的操作将成为学生主导的研究工作。该项目将为一名研究生提供全额学费和津贴，以进行电离层对流的半球间共轭博士研究。将为研究生提供旅费，用于参加在美国举行的年度科学会议，并与SuperDARN在英国的合作伙伴组织进行两次访问，以进行广泛的合作。所有教育和外联部分都包括适当和重要的评价和评估措施，这些措施将与弗吉尼亚理工学院学术评估办公室合作进行。

This is a five year Faculty Early Career Development project to carry out integrated research and education activities under the theme of inter-hemispheric space weather connections. An overarching science objective for the research efforts to be undertaken is the investigation of the inter-hemispheric magnetic conjugacy of ionospheric irregularities and convection on closed magnetic field lines. This will be done based mainly on simultaneous measurements from the NSF-supported SuperDARN network of radars in the northern and southern hemispheres. Statistical and case study analysis of more than 20 years of existing SuperDARN radar data from northern and southern hemisphere sites in the auroral and mid-latitude regions will be conducted. A particular emphasis will be to compare the degree of conjugacy between the auroral zone and the subauroral ionosphere. The recent expansion of SuperDARN to middle latitudes provides new capabilities to investigate inter-hemispheric conjugacy in the subauroral ionosphere, including a unique 20 month-long dataset of combined measurements from the Falkland Islands and Wallops radars. The research effort will form the basis for a graduate degree as well as various self-contained research projects for undergraduate students. Significant additional education and outreach activities in the project are designed to enhance the exposure of students to space science research and associated engineering in undergraduate education and pre-college summer camps at Virginia Tech. The central concept of inter-hemispheric space weather connections will be integrated into the undergraduate curriculum and summer camp activities. Pre-college and undergraduate students will use newly purchased hand-held radio receiver equipment to search for natural VLF signals (such as sferics, tweeks and whistlers) and learn about inter-hemispheric space weather phenomena. Undergraduate students will be employed as teaching assistants for the summer camp activities. The acquisition of a research grade ELF/VLF receiver will broaden the radio science activities at Virginia Tech and operation of the instrument will become a student-led research effort. The project will provide full tuition and stipend support for a graduate student to pursue Ph.D. research on inter-hemispheric conjugacy of ionospheric convection. Travel funds will be provided for the graduate student to attend yearly scientific meetings in the US, and to visit twice with SuperDARN partner organizations in the UK for extensive collaboration. All education and outreach components include appropriate and significant measures of evaluation and assessment that will be conducted in collaboration with the Office of Academic Assessment at Virginia Tech.