Center for Astrophysics Research and Technologies Seminar Series
Studying the Ionosphere using Lightning as a Signal of Opportunity
Presented by Joe Malins (UNM)
This talk discusses newly developed techniques for observing lightning and it's interaction with the ionosphere using the Long Wavelength Array. Lightning produces bright, broad spectrum, very short radio pulses that reflect off of the ionosphere. Due to the changing density of electrons by height in the ionosphere, each frequency of the lightning pulse reflects at a different height, and thus returns at a slightly different time, allowing for a height density model to be extracted from each return pulse. This information can then be fed into ionospheric models and used to better understand the nature of the ionosphere, including traveling ionospheric disturbances and small scale perturbations of the ionosphere. These reflections can be monitored using several modes of the Long Wavelength Array, capturing more information from the local ionosphere than traditional ionospheric sounding. This talk discusses the development of techniques using the LWA and initial results from these studies.
2:00 pm, Thursday, November 15, 2018
PAIS-2540, PAIS
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