GHz In Excess Research Articles

GPM-Derived Climatology of Attenuation Due to Clouds and Precipitation at Ka-Band

Attenuation from clouds and precipitation hinders the use of Ka-band in SARs, radar altimeters and in satellite link communications. The NASA-JAXA Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, with its core satellite payload including a dual-frequency (13.6 and 35.5 GHz) radar and a multifrequency passive microwave radiometer, offers an unprecedented opportunity for better quantifying such attenuation effects. Based on four years of GPM products, this article presents a global climatology of Ka-band attenuation caused by clouds and precipitation and analyses the impact of the precipitation diurnal cycle. As expected, regions of high attenuation mirror precipitation patterns. Clouds and precipitation cause two-way attenuation at 35.5 GHz in excess of 3 dB about 1.5% of the time in the regions below 65°, peaking at as much as 10% in the tropical rain belt and the South Pacific Convergence Zone and at circa 5% along the storm tracks of the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Confirming previous findings, the diurnal cycle is particularly strong over the land and during the summer period; while over the ocean, the diurnal cycle is generally weaker some coherent features emerge in the tropical oceans and in the northern hemisphere. Results are useful for estimating data loss from (sun-synchronous) satellite adopting active instruments/links at a frequency close to 35 GHz.

Sub-Milliarcsecond Imaging of Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei. IV. Fine-Scale Structure

We have examined the compact structure in 250 flat-spectrum extragalactic radio sources using interferometric fringe visibilities obtained with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) at 15 GHz. With projected baselines out to 440 Mλ, we are able to investigate source structure on typical angular scales as small as 0.05 mas. This scale is similar to the resolution of the VLBI Space Observatory Programme data obtained on longer baselines at a lower frequency and with somewhat poorer accuracy. For 171 sources in our sample, more than half of the total flux density seen by the VLBA remains unresolved on the longest baselines. There are 163 sources in our list with a median correlated flux density at 15 GHz in excess of 0.5 Jy on the longest baselines; these will be useful as fringe finders for short-wavelength VLBA observations. The total flux densities recovered in the VLBA images at 15 GHz are generally close to the values measured around the same epoch at the same frequency with the RATAN-600 and University of Michigan Radio Astronomy Observatory telescopes. We have modeled the core of each source with an elliptical Gaussian component. For about 60% of the sources, we have at least one observation in which the core component appears unresolved (generally smaller than 0.05 mas) in one direction, usually transverse to the direction into which the jet extends. BL Lac objects are on average more compact than quasars, while active galaxies are on average less compact. Also, in an active galaxy the sub-milliarcsecond core component tends to be less dominant. Intraday variability (IDV) sources typically have a more compact, more core-dominated structure on sub-milliarcsecond scales than non-IDV sources, and sources with a greater amplitude of intraday variations tend to have a greater unresolved VLBA flux density. The objects known to be GeV gamma-ray-loud appear to have a more compact VLBA structure than the other sources in our sample. This suggests that the mechanisms for the production of gamma-ray emission and for the generation of compact radio synchrotron–emitting features are related. The brightness temperature estimates and lower limits for the cores in our sample typically range between 1011 and 1013 K, but they extend up to 5 × 1013 K, apparently in excess of the equipartition brightness temperature or the inverse Compton limit for stationary synchrotron sources. The largest component speeds are observed in radio sources with high observed brightness temperatures, as would be expected from relativistic beaming. Longer baselines, which can be obtained by space VLBI observations, will be needed to resolve the most compact high brightness temperature regions in these sources.