Frequency correlation of probe waves backscattered from small scale ionospheric irregularities generated by high power HF radio waves

Abstract

Aspect sensitive scattering of multi-frequency probe signals by artificial, magnetic field aligned density irregularities (with transverse size ∼1–10 m) generated in the ionosphere by powerful radio waves is considered. Fluctuations of received signals depending on stochastic properties of the irregularities are calculated. It is shown that in the case of HF probe waves two mechanisms may contribute to the scattered signal fluctuations. The first one is due to the propagation of probe waves in the ionospheric plasma as in a randomly inhomogeneous medium. The second one lies in non-stationary stochastic behavior of irregularities which satisfy the Bragg conditions for the scattering geometry and therefore constitute centers of scattering. In the probe wave frequency band of the order of 10–100 MHz the second mechanism dominates which delivers opportunity to recover some properties of artificial irregularities from received signals. Correlation function of backscattered probe waves with close frequencies is calculated, and it is shown that detailed spatial distribution of irregularities along the scattering vector can be found experimentally from observations of this correlation function.