Journal article
Real-time imaging of density ducts between the plasmasphere and ionosphere
Shyeh Tjing Loi, Tara Murphy, Iver H Cairns, Frederick W Menk, Colin L Waters, Philip J Erickson, Cathryn M Trott, Natasha Hurley-Walker, John Morgan, Emil Lenc, Andre R Offringa, Martin E Bell, Ronald D Ekers, BM Gaensler, Colin J Lonsdale, Lu Feng, Paul J Hancock, David L Kaplan, G Bernardi, JD Bowman Show all
GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS | AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION | Published : 2015
DOI: 10.1002/2015GL063699
Abstract
Ionization of the Earth's atmosphere by sunlight forms a complex, multilayered plasma environment within the Earth's magnetosphere, the innermost layers being the ionosphere and plasmasphere. The plasmasphere is believed to be embedded with cylindrical density structures (ducts) aligned along the Earth's magnetic field, but direct evidence for these remains scarce. Here we report the first direct wide-angle observation of an extensive array of field-aligned ducts bridging the upper ionosphere and inner plasmasphere, using a novel ground-based imaging technique. We establish their heights and motions by feature tracking and parallax analysis. The structures are strikingly organized, appearing..
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Grants
Awarded by U.S. National Science Foundation
Awarded by Australian Research Council (LIEF)
Awarded by U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Awarded by Centre for All-sky Astrophysics (an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence)
Awarded by Victoria University of Wellington from the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development
Awarded by Directorate For Geosciences
Awarded by Division Of Astronomical Sciences
Funding Acknowledgements
The data supporting this paper are available upon request submitted via email to the corresponding author at sloi5113@uni.sydney.edu.au. This scientific work makes use of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, operated by CSIRO. We acknowledge the Wajarri Yamatji people as the traditional owners of the Observatory site. Support for the MWA comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation (grants AST-0457585, PHY-0835713, CAREER-0847753, AST-0908884, and AST-1412421), the Australian Research Council (LIEF grants LE0775621 and LE0882938), the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant FA9550-0510247), and the Centre for All-sky Astrophysics (an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence funded by grant CE110001020). Support is also provided by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the MIT School of Science, the Raman Research Institute, the Australian National University, and the Victoria University of Wellington (via grant MED-E1799 from the New Zealand Ministry of Economic Development and an IBM Shared University Research grant). The Australian Federal government provides additional support via the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, Education Investment Fund, and the Australia India Strategic Research Fund, and Astronomy Australia Limited, under contract to Curtin University. We acknowledge the iVEC Petabyte Data Store, the Initiative in Innovative Computing and the CUDA Center for Excellence sponsored by NVIDIA at Harvard University, and the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), a Joint Venture of Curtin University and The University of Western Australia, funded by the Western Australian State government. We thank D. B. Melrose for discussions regarding physical interpretations.