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，使远距离无线电通信成为可能。它还能以很小的扰动在地面和航天器之间传输微波。然而，电离层等离子体通常具有许多尺度的不规则性，因此它对无线电波的反射很差，并导致地面到航天器微波链路的闪烁。在赤道附近，不规则现象开始于100公里尺度的低密度等离子体气泡穿过高密度等离子体上升，其不稳定机制相当于雷暴单体的形成。这种和其他更多正弦波类型不规则的触发机制尚未确定。这笔赠款用于研究不正常现象的性质和触发机制。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.