Pertubation of Mesospheric Dust Associated Irregulariteis by High Powered Radio Waves

Abstract

Summary form only given. Important observational manifestations of subvisible mesospheric dust are Polar Mesospheric Summer Echoes PMSE which are produced by scattering from electron irregularities produced by dust charging. It has been observed that the PMSE strength can be artificially modified by using a ground-based ionospheric heating facility to perturb the electron irregularity source region that is believed to produce PMSE. Recently it has become evident that significant diagnostic information may be available about the dust layer from the temporal behavior of the electron irregularities during the heating process which modifies the background electron temperature. Particularly interesting and important periods of the temporal behavior are during the turn-on and turn-off of the radio wave heating. Although significant progress has been made, past work has not exploited the full range of possibilities for diagnostic information. A new theoretical model has been developed to address limitations of the previous models. This model predicts new phenomenon during the temporal evolution of the irregularities during the ionospheric heating. These will be discussed as well as new possibilities for diagnostic information of the dust layer.