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Anomalous absorption of a radio wave in the ionosphere

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2009

V. K. Tripathi
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016, India
B. K. Sawhney
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016, India
S. V. Singh
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi 110016, India

Abstract

A radio wave transmitted into the ionosphere in the presence of a lower-hybrid drift wave excites a Langmuir wave, which is then damped by electrons, thereby heating them. This constitutes an important absorption mechanism. We evaluate the potential of the Langmuir wave and obtain an expression for the ratio Pr of the power of the Langmuir wave to that of the incident radio wave in the inhomogeneous ionosphere. It is found that the radio wave suffers an absorption of about 8% for a density fluctuation n1/n0 = 5%, but the electric field of the Langmuir wave becomes about 11.7 times that of the radio wave, which can lead to the excitation of parametric instabilities in the ionosphere.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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