Characteristics of electron cyclotron harmonic waves observed in an active two‐point propagation experiment in the ionosphere

[1] Electrostatic electron cyclotron waves (ECWs), also-called electron Bernstein waves, observed at harmonics nfc of the electron cyclotron frequency fc were transmitted over field-aligned emitter-receiver separations of hundreds of meters in the active rocket experiment OEDIPUS-C. Although the 300-μs rectangular current pulses into the emitting antenna were smoothly maintained during the experiment, the resulting ECW pulses at the receiver exhibited considerable variety in both the time and frequency domains. A full hot-plasma dispersion relation has been applied to ray-tracing investigations to identify the rays that could connect the emitter and receiver in a smoothly varying model of the auroral ionospheric magnetoplasma. Theoretical connecting rays were limited to frequencies extending from 1 to a few kilohertz above 2fc, which was about 2.6 MHz. But the observed pulse spectra extended over a much broader bandwidth, from several kilohertz below nfc to several kilohertz above, for n = 2, 3, and 4. The broadening is interpreted as a consequence of Doppler effect caused by payload motion and backscatter of the ECWs. Field-aligned density irregularities typical of the auroral topside ionosphere or waves nonlinearly induced by the intense near fields of the HEX antenna may act as the scatterers.

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