Using soft X‐ray measurements from detectors onboard the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and simultaneous high‐cadence Lyman‐α observations from the Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA) onboard the Project for On‐Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) ESA spacecraft, we study the response of the lower part of the ionosphere, the D region, to seven moderate to medium‐size solar flares that occurred in February and March of 2010. The ionospheric disturbances are analyzed by monitoring the resulting sub‐ionospheric wave propagation anomalies detected by the South America Very Low Frequency (VLF) Network (SAVNET). We find that the ionospheric disturbances, which are characterized by changes of the VLF wave phase, do not depend on the presence of Lyman‐α radiation excesses during the flares. Indeed, Lyman‐α excesses associated with flares do not produce measurable phase changes. Our results are in agreement with what is expected in terms of forcing of the lower ionosphere by quiescent Lyman‐α emission along the solar activity cycle. Therefore, while phase changes using the VLF technique may be a good indicator of quiescent Lyman‐α variations along the solar cycle, they cannot be used to scale explosive Lyman‐α emission during flares.

On 22 January 2009, a series of X-ray bursts were emitted by the soft gamma ray repeater SGR J1550-5418. Some of these bursts produced enhanced ionization in the nighttime lower ionosphere. These ionospheric disturbances were studied using X-ray measurements from the Anti-Coincidence Shield of the Spectrometer for Integral onboard the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory and simultaneous phase and amplitude records from two VLF propagation paths between the transmitter Naval Radio Station, Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) and the receivers Radio Observatorio do Itapetinga (Brazil) and Estação Antarctica Commandante Ferraz (Antarctic Peninsula). The VLF measurements have been obtained with an unprecedented high time resolution of 20 ms. We find that the illumination factor I (illuminated path length times the cosine of the zenith angle), which characterizes the propagation paths underlying the flaring object, is a key parameter which determines the sensitivity threshold of the VLF detection of X-ray bursts from nonsolar transients. For the present VLF measurements of bursts from SGR J1550-5418, it is found that for I ≥ 1.8 Mm, all X-ray bursts with fluence in the 25 keV to 2 MeV range larger than F 25_min~1 .0 × 10 À6 erg/cm 2 produce a measurable ionospheric disturbance. Such a lower limit of the X-ray fluence value indicates that moderate X-ray bursts, as opposed to giant X-ray bursts, do produce ionospheric disturbances larger than the sensitivity limit of the VLF technique. Therefore, the frequency of detection of such events could be improved, for example by increasing the coverage of existing VLF receiving networks. The VLF detection of high-energy astrophysical bursts then appears as an important observational diagnostic to complement their detection in space. This would be especially important when space observations suffer from adverse conditions, like saturation, occultation from the Earth, or the passage of the spacecraft through the South Atlantic anomaly.

Very low frequency (VLF: 3-30 kHz) radio waves propagate inside the Earth-ionosphere waveguide monitoring the electrical conductivity of its boundaries. The upper boundary properties of the waveguide can be represented by Wait parameters (Wait & Spies, 1964), namely, the reference height and conductivity gradient of the D-region. The quiescent ionospheric condition can be disturbed by different types of physical phenomena, originating in space (Clilverd et al., 2010;Macotela et al., 2017) or on Earth (Macotela, Clilverd, Manninen, Thomson, et al., 2019). These disturbances, interpreted as perturbations of the D-region ionization levels, produce changes in the Wait parameters, which show up as phase and/or amplitude variations in the VLF signals.It is well known that the long-term variation of the daytime lower ionosphere exhibits distinct seasonal characteristics with high variability in winter, and lower variability in summer (

The daytime lower ionosphere behaves as a solar X‐ray flare detector, which can be monitored using very low frequency (VLF) radio waves that propagate inside the Earth‐ionosphere waveguide. In this paper, we infer the lower ionosphere sensitivity variation over a complete solar cycle by using the minimum X‐ray fluence (FXmin) necessary to produce a disturbance of the quiescent ionospheric conductivity. FXmin is the photon energy flux integrated over the time interval from the start of a solar X‐ray flare to the beginning of the ionospheric disturbance recorded as amplitude deviation of the VLF signal. FXmin is computed for ionospheric disturbances that occurred in the time interval of December–January from 2007 to 2016 (solar cycle 24). The computation of FXmin uses the X‐ray flux in the wavelength band below 0.2 nm and the amplitude of VLF signals transmitted from France (HWU), Turkey (TBB), and U.S. (NAA), which were recorded in Brazil, Finland, and Peru. The main result of this study is that the long‐term variation of FXmin is correlated with the level of solar activity, having FXmin values in the range (1 − 12) × 10−7 J/m2. Our result suggests that FXmin is anticorrelated with the lower ionosphere sensitivity, confirming that the long‐term variation of the ionospheric sensitivity is anticorrelated with the level of solar activity. This result is important to identify the minimum X‐ray fluence that an external source of ionization must overcome in order to produce a measurable ionospheric disturbance during daytime.

Pronounced amplitude minima are observed during the subionospheric propagation of VLF waves at times (Terminator Times) when the Terminator Line crosses given locations along the propagation path. The distance between such two successive minima is called the modal interference distance D, which is related to nighttime mode propagation in the Earth-ionosphere waveguide. Therefore, the temporal behavior of the distance D can bring information on the dynamics of the nighttime lower ionosphere and on the presence of external forcing agents, including those associated with seismic activity. In this paper we present a methodology to estimate D based on the measure and analysis of the pronounced VLF amplitude minima. We have used a long-term database of almost 5 years from three different VLF propagation paths from the South America VLF Network. We emphasize that the accuracy of the determination of the distance D achieved by our method is better than those obtained in earlier studies. The reason for that is the use of a long-term continuous database, from different parallel propagation paths mainly oriented along the west-to-east direction. We discuss typical properties of the obtained distance D, as the simultaneous occurrence of amplitude minima for parallel propagation paths, anomalous values of D at locations where the Terminator Line is close to the receiver, and the derivation of the undisturbed nighttime ionospheric height at h N~8 8 km.

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The subionospheric very low frequency (VLF) radio wave technique provides the possibility of investigating the response of the ionospheric D‐region to a diversity of transient and long‐term physical phenomena originating from above (e.g., energetic particle precipitation) and from below (e.g., atmospheric waves). In this study, we identify the periodicities that appear in VLF measurements and investigate how they may be related to changes in space weather and atmospheric activity. The powerful VLF signal transmitted from NAA (24 kHz) on the east coast of the United States, and received at Sodankylä, Finland, was analyzed. Wavelet transform, wavelet power spectrum, wavelet coherence, and cross‐wavelet spectrum were computed for daily averages of selected ionospheric, space weather, and atmospheric parameters from November 2008 until June 2018. Our results show that the significant VLF periods that appear during solar cycle 24 are the annual oscillation, semiannual oscillation, 121‐day, 86‐day, 61‐day, and solar rotation oscillations. We found that the annual oscillation corresponds to variability in mesospheric temperature and solar Lyman‐α (Ly‐α) flux and the semiannual oscillation to variability in space weather‐related parameters. The solar rotation oscillation observed in the VLF variability is mainly related to the Ly‐α flux variation at solar maximum and to geomagnetic activity variation during the declining phase of the solar cycle. Our results are important since they strengthen our understanding of the Earth's D‐region response to solar and atmospheric forcing.

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