On specific features of diurnal variations in characteristics of the diagnostic stimulated electromagnetic emission and their relation to the evolution of artificial ionospheric irregularities

Abstract

We analyze variations in characteristics of the diagnostic stimulated electromagnetic emission of the ionosphere in the evening hours including the times of sunset both on the Earth’s surface at the observation point and in the ionosphere over it. It is found that an increase in typical times of evolution of the diagnostic emission begins to be recorded just before the sunset on the Earth’s surface when the ionosphere is illuminated and its parameters are not significantly changed yet. We state that the typical times of evolution of the diagnostic emission increase when the pump-wave frequency approaches the critical frequency of the ionospheric F2 layer, but such an effect is not as significant as when passing from the illuminated to the unilluminated ionosphere. It is established that at the stage of diagnostic sounding the pump-wave pulse power does not exert any notable influence on the first (fast) stage of relaxation of small-scale artificial ionospheric irregularities, but can increase the decay time of the irregularities at the second (slow) stage of relaxation. Capabilities of the method for a study of artificial plasma turbulence using the diagnostic stimulated electromagnetic emission are discussed.