Anomalous absorption and reflection in ionospheric radio modification experiments

Abstract

The anomalous absorption of an ordinary polarized radio wave due to magnetic field aligned short‐scale striations is studied. By the method of averaging, a correction term to the cold plasma dielectric tensor can be derived. The correction term behaves singularly at the upper hybrid level, inducing new cutoff and resonance. A situation analogous to the Budden tunneling problem arises. Thus the anomalous absorption is necessarily accompanied by partial reflection at the upper hybrid level. A consequence is that the absorption coefficient has a maximum at a certain striation intensity, with reflection dominating at higher intensities. This is expected to be important for the saturation of the process generating the striations.