ISBN: 978-3-936586-03-9
Authors: V. V. Belikovich, E. A. Benediktov, A. V. Tolmacheva, N. V. Bakhmet'eva
Pages: 160
Year: 2002

English translation by Drs. M Forster & M. Rietveld

This book acquaints the reader with a new remote sensing method of research of the ionospheric plasma and the atmosphere using artificial periodic irregularities (API). It summarizes more than twenty years of experience on API studies and their use as a diagnostic of the ionospheric plasma and the atmosphere.

API were discovered in 1975 at the Radiophysical Research Institute (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia) during experiments on ionospheric plasma modification by powerful high frequency radio waves. API are formed in the field of a powerful standing radio wave, produced as a result of the interference of waves incident and reflected from the ionosphere.

Investigating the ionospheric plasma using API is realized in the following way. API are formed by the action of a powerful standing radio wave. The API are then sounded by pulsed probe radio waves whose amplitudes and phases are received and recorded after Bragg backscattering from the API. Finally, the parameters of the ionospheric plasma and the atmosphere are extracted from the data.