Triple splitting and z-rays in polar ionograms

• Published in: Antarctic Science
• Main Author: Scotto, Carlo
• Other Authors: Scotto, C., Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), Sezione Roma2, Roma, Italia
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: ionosonde; ionosphere; radio propagation; 01. Atmosphere::01.02. Ionosphere::01.02.05. Wave propagation; Antarctic Science
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2122/11524; https://doi.org/10.1017/S095410201400090X

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. Received 13 June 2014, accepted 10 December 2014 Published 383-387 2A. Fisica dell'alta atmosfera JCR Journal