Active Ionospheric Generation of ELF/VLF (Extremely Low Frequency/Very Low Frequency) Waves

摘要

During the past year our work supported by the ONR Contract N00014-84-C-0353 achieved many significant results concerning ionospheric generation of ELF/VLF as well as ULF waves. A major breakthrough was our participation in an experiment using the Arecibo facility in which a preliminary proof of principle of two of the relevant concepts was produced, We highlight below some of our key results and refer the interested reader to the appendices for details. A novel process for generating ELF/ULF waves by using ionospheric heating was discovered and its applicability to auroral geometry was examined. The process relies on modulated E-region heating and does not depend on the presence of ambient ionospheric currents.