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Triple splitting and z-rays in polar ionograms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2015

Carlo Scotto*
Affiliation:
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Via di Vigna Murata 605, Rome, Italy

Abstract

The theory of propagation in a direction almost parallel to the Earth’s magnetic field is reviewed, calculating the group refractive index of the ordinary ray in the presence of electron-neutral collisions. An electron density profile is estimated from the ordinary trace and is used to compute the z-ray trace. It is shown that this reconstruction can help to identify the rare cases of z-rays from among the numerous cases of duplicate ordinary traces, due to reflection from two different directions.

Type
Physical Sciences
Copyright
© Antarctic Science Ltd 2015 

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