Collaborative Research: Remote Sensing of the Lower Ionosphere during 2024 Solar Eclipse: Revealing the Spatial and Temporal Scales of Ionization and Recombination

该奖项涉及科罗拉多丹佛大学和加州伯克利大学之间的合作，研究日食期间的电离层。极低频无线电观测将在2024年美国东部日食期间进行。 日食是一种罕见的事件，其中来自太阳的辐射部分或全部被月球遮挡了几分钟。日食不仅观测壮观，而且为研究电离层的物理和化学过程提供了难得的机会。特别是，电离层的最低部分受到太阳的显著影响，难以研究。日食提供了观察电离层在几分钟内昼夜变化的机会。 因此，在日食期间进行的观测为了解太阳如何改变低电离层提供了关键的见解。了解低电离层对于改善远距离通信和了解影响越来越多技术的空间天气过程非常重要。 来自两所大学不同人群的一些学生将支持这一努力，并接受培训，进行低频无线电波观测及其解释。这个合作项目结合了丹佛大学和伯克利大学的资源，利用甚低频和极低频遥感技术研究2024年美国日食期间的低电离层。三种类型的接收器硬件将用于在日食事件期间进行协同观测。观测结果将通过数值模拟来解释，以回答日食期间低电离层动态的突出问题。 这三个科学问题是：1）日食全食区电离层的横向和垂直结构是什么？2)当全食区靠近一个强大的甚低频发射机时，观测到的电离层扰动是什么？低电离层对日食扰动点的特征反应时间是多少？ 2024年日全食的细节将月球阴影带到了美国最强大的VLF发射机附近。 该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award involves a collaboration between the University of Colorado Denver and University of California Berkeley to study the ionosphere during a solar eclipse. Very low frequency radio observations will be made during the 2024 solar eclipse in the eastern United States. A solar eclipse is a rare event in which the radiation from the sun is partially or totally obscured by the moon for a few minutes. A solar eclipse is not only spectacular to observe but also provides a rare opportunity to study the physical and chemical processes of the ionosphere. In particular, the lowest part of the ionosphere is significantly modified by the sun and is difficult to study. A solar eclipse offers the opportunity to observe a day-night-day change of the ionosphere on the scale of a few minutes. Observations made during an eclipse therefore provide a key insight into how the sun changes the lower ionosphere. Understanding the lower ionosphere is important to improving long distant communications and understanding space weather processes that affect an increasing number of technologies. A number of students from the diverse populations at both universities will support the effort and be trained to make low frequency radio wave observations and their interpretations. This collaborative project combines the resources of CU Denver and UC Berkeley to study the lower ionosphere during the solar eclipse of 2024 in the United States, using VLF and ELF remote sensing techniques. Three types of receiver hardware will be used to make synergistic observations during the solar eclipse events. The observations will be interpreted with numerical modeling efforts to answer outstanding questions on the dynamics of the lower ionosphere during an eclipse. The three science questions are 1) What is the lateral and vertical structure of the ionosphere in the totality zone of the solar eclipse? 2) What are the observed ionospheric perturbations when the region of totality is near a powerful VLF transmitter? and 3) What is the lower ionosphere characteristic reaction time to a point like perturbation from the eclipse? The specifics of the 2024 total solar eclipse bring the lunar shadow to the close vicinity of the most powerful VLF transmitter in the United States. This offers a unique opportunity to study a solar eclipse with higher resolution and in the presence of local heating effects.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.