Ionospheric disturbance caused by artificial plasma clouds under different release conditions

Abstract

The generation and evolution of artificial plasma clouds is a complicated process that is strongly dependent on the background environment and release conditions. In this paper, based on a three-dimensional two-species fluid model, the evolution characteristics of artificial plasma clouds under various release conditions were analyzed numerically. In particular, the effect of ionospheric density gradient and ambient horizontal wind field was taken into account in our simulation. The results show that an asymmetric plasma cloud structure occurs in the vertical direction when a nonuniform ionosphere is assumed. The density, volume, and expansion velocity of the artificial plasma cloud vary with the release altitude, mass, and initial ionization rate. The initial release velocity can change the cloud's movement and overall distribution. With an initial velocity perpendicular to the magnetic field, an O+ density cavity and two bumps exist. When there is an initial velocity parallel to the magnetic field, the generated plasma cloud is bulb-shaped, and only one O+ density cavity and one density bump are created. Compared to the cesium case, barium clouds expand more rapidly. Moreover, Cs+ clouds have a higher density than Ba+ clouds, and the snowplow effect of Cs+ is also stronger.

Dynamical Complexity Response in Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances Across Eastern Africa Sector During Geomagnetic Storms Using Neural Network Entropy

“…This nonlinearity emerges when interactions among atmospheric drivers are not directly proportional (Dakos, 2019) and could have a great influence on the complexity and internal dynamics of the ionosphere since all these inherent irregularities can lead to chaotic variation at all geophysical condition (Unnikrishnan & Ravindran, 2010). Notably, the expansion of neutral clouds, the photoionization process and the movement of charged particles bound by magnetic fields introduces instabilities of plasma (Stubbe & Hagfors, 1997; Zhu et al., 2020). Thus, leading to rapid variation in ionospheric electron density that drives the occurrence of TIDs.…”

Explore the Echo Characteristics of HF Radar in Artificial Disturbance Ionosphere Using Ray‐Tracing Technology

“…So far, a large number of active release experiments have been carried out on the artificial perturbation ionosphere (Bernhardt et al., 2011; Huba et al., 1992; Klobuchar & Abdu, 1989; Pongratz, 1981; Retterer et al., 2017). On the basis of experimental results, many scholars have carried out both theoretical and numerical simulation studies on the disturbance process of chemicals after their release in the ionosphere and the generation mechanism of related phenomena (Anderson & Bernhardt, 1978; Bernhardt, 1984, 1987; Choueiri et al., 2001; Hu et al., 2011; Ma & Schunk, 1994; Mitchell et al., 1985; Xie et al., 2014; X. L. Zhu et al., 2020).…”