Collaborative Proposal: A High-Latitude Conjugate Area Array Experiment to Investigate Solar Wind - Magnetosphere - Ionosphere Coupling

地球空间环境包括一个复杂的交错区域系统，该系统与即将到来的太阳风等离子体流相互作用，并将其能量和动量从地球磁层外层向下传输到电离层和上层大气。这些物理过程主要发生在地球的白天，沿着地磁线将大部分能量转移到北极和南极地区。了解这种将两极电离层耦合在一起的复杂相互作用过程，对于开发能够描述和预测空间天气扰动并帮助减轻其对人类技术系统--从近地空间资产到电网和长管道--的影响的物理模型非常重要。迫切需要收集足够的地球物理数据来调查上述过程，特别是从南半球收集数据。有了这项合同，受赠者将在东南极高原建造和部署更多的地面观测平台，增强已经部署的自主低功率磁力仪的现有子午线阵列的能力。这将使南方磁力计阵列与部署在格陵兰和斯瓦尔巴群岛的类似仪器实现二维和地磁共轭，从而有可能对产生自然超低频电磁波的磁层区域进行全球观察。该项目涉及年轻科学家，他们将操作遥远的南极磁力计，分析收集的数据，以调查空间天气事件并验证模型。该项目扩大了弗吉尼亚理工学院与新罕布夏大学、新泽西理工学院、中国极地研究所和丹麦工业大学的合作伙伴关系。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Geospace environment comprises a complex system of interlaced domains that interacts with the incoming solar wind plasma flow and transfers its energy and momentum from the Earth's magnetosphere outer layers down to the ionosphere and upper atmosphere. These physical processes take place mainly on the Earth's dayside, diverting most of the energy along geomagnetic field lines toward both the northern and southern polar regions. Understanding this complex interaction process that couples both polar ionospheres is important for developing the physical models that can describe and predict space weather disturbances and help mitigate their impacts on humans' technological systems - from near-Earth space assets down to electrical grids and long pipelines. There is a strong need to collect sufficient geophysical data to investigate the above-mentioned processes, particularly from the southern hemisphere. With this award, the grantees will build and deploy additional ground-based observations platforms in the East Antarctic Plateau, enhancing capabilities of the existing meridional array of already deployed autonomous, low-powered magnetometers. This will make the southern array of magnetometers two-dimensional and geomagnetically conjugate to similar instruments deployed in Greenland and Svalbard, thus making possible a global view of the magnetospheric regions where natural, ultra-low frequency electromagnetic waves are generated. The project involves young scientists who will operate remote Antarctic magnetometers and analyze collected data to investigate space weather events and validate models. This project expands the Virginia Tech's partnership with the University of New Hampshire, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Polar Research Institute of China, and Technical University of Denmark.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.