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大学丹佛分校和加州大学伯克利分校合作研究日食期间的电离层。2024年美国东部日食期间将进行非常低频率的无线电观测。日食是一种罕见的事件，在这种情况下，来自太阳的辐射被月球部分或全部遮盖几分钟。日食不仅壮观，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修改，很难研究。日食提供了在几分钟的尺度上观察电离层昼夜日间变化的机会。因此，在日食期间进行的观测为太阳如何改变低电离层提供了一个关键的洞察。了解较低的电离层对于改善远距离通信和了解影响越来越多的技术的空间天气过程很重要。两所大学来自不同人群的一些学生将支持这一努力，并接受培训，以进行低频无线电波观测及其解释。这个合作项目结合了加州大学丹佛分校和加州大学伯克利分校的资源，利用甚低频和ELF遥感技术研究美国2024年日食期间的低电离层。在日食事件期间，将使用三种类型的接收器硬件进行协同观测。这些观测结果将通过数值模拟工作进行解释，以回答有关日食期间低电离层动力学的悬而未决的问题。这三个科学问题是：1)日全食区域电离层的横向和垂直结构是什么？2)当日全食区域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？3)从日食到摄动点的低电离层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甚低频发射机附近。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，通过使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，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.