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PROCEEDINGS
VOL.
IEEE, OF THE
AND
Invited Paper
in-siru,
I.INTRODUCTION
A . History of Ionosphere Scintillation Studies
N 1946, Hey, Parsons, and Phillips [ 11 observed marked
short-period irregular fluctuations in the intensity of radiofrequency (64MHz) radiation from the radio star Cygnus.
At first it was thought that the fluctuations were inherent in
the source itself. Subsequent observations indicated that there
was no correlationbetween
fluctuations recorded attwo
stations 210 km apart, while fairly good correlation was found
for a separation of 4 km [21, [ 31 . This led to the suggestion
that the phenomenon was locally produced, probably in the
earths atmosphere.Indeed,as
later observations confirmed
[4] -[ l o ] , this marked the f i i t observation of the ionosphere
scintillation phenomenon.
Afterthe f i t artificial satellite was launched in1957,it
became possible to observe ionospherescintillations
using
radio transmissions from the satellite [ 1 1I -[ 151 . The interest
in the study of this phenomenon has continued in thelast two
decades. In general, the interests are twofold. On theone
hand, the study of the scintillation problem is directly related
t o the transionosphericcommunicationproblemssuch
as
statistics of signal fading, channel modeling, ranging resolution, etc. On the other hand, scintillation data contain infor-
Lu
=q
(1.1)
where L is usually a linear differential operator and less frequently an integro-differential operator or a tensor operator
325
IN THE IONOSPHERE
1.
10
io
-10
IS
tS
3b
40
35
4
0
5
TIHE
3.
eo
lo
I S
t0
es
30
15
40
[8ECONOSI
-i
I
2.
-.
0.
0
tO
10
IS
30
LS
3s
40
-10 i
0
10
15
20
t S
30
3s
40
326
Mopplng
Probabllity Space
of the Problem
Probabllity Space
of the Wave Function
CORRELATION
LENGTH
/I
4 1
-4
-6
10
I5
media and then trace rays, all with identical initial conditions
in these realized media. The results foronesuchstudy
are
shown in Fig. 4 [28]. The statistical behavior of the ray can
be obtained if a sufficiently large number of such rays have
been traced, as done in [28] and 1291. In this way, a method
known as the Monte Carlo method is thus constructed so that
the mapping between the two probability spaces is achieved.
Unfortunately, the Monte Carlo method is very cumbersome
321
00 100 IO
I
I
100 IO
I
I
0.1 0.01
I
1
Wanderlng of Normal
to Ionosphere
Multiple
Normals
.-
of TlDs
11. CHARACTERIZATION
OF IONOSPHERIC
IRREGULARITIES
SCALE I
MAGNETIC FIELD (m)
HORIZONTAL
SCALE (km)
(Gravitationally
Anisotropic 1
Phose
Sclntillatlon
e
e
$
H
A . Observational Evidence
The existence of ionosphericirregularities is required to
explainmanyexperimentalobservations.
The earliest is the
vertical soundingexperiment [30] in which aradarecho is
received as the carrier frequency is swept from about 0.5 MHz
to 15 MHz. The received data aretypicallydisplayedin the
time delay (or virtualheight) versus frequency format. Normally the echo traces in such a display are very clean, showing
distinct ionospheric layers. On
occasion, the echo traces are
broadened and diffused for heights corresponding to the ionospheric F region. When this happens the echoes are known
as spread F echoes and the irregularities that cause the spread
F echoes are commonly called the spread F irregularities.
Many experimental techniques have been used to study these
spread F irregularities. A historical account of the experimental effort can be found in [ 3 11 . The experimental techniques
can be broadly grouped into two: remote sensing techniques
and in-situ measurements. Most remote sensing techniques
utilizeradio waves and they canbe classified according to
whether the radio waves arereflectedfrom,scatteredfrom,
or penetrating through the ionosphere. In a low-power operation the radio waves are normally reflected fromthe ionpsphere
in experiments such as vertical ionosonde, backscatter ion@
sonde, and forward scatter ionosonde. Such experiments are
useful in detecting the existence of spread F irregularities and
their results have been used in morphologicalstudies as reviewed by Herman [ 3 2 ] . As the radio frequency is increased
beyondsome value, theradio wavebegins to penetrate the
ionosphere and almost all of its electromagnetic energy escapes
into the outer space. Nevertheless there is a very small amount
of its energy that is scatteredback.Underquiescentconditions the backscattering is caused by ionospheric plasma fluctuationsunderthermalagitations.Forsufficientlypowerful
radars the scattered signal may be strong enough to provide us
withusefulinformation.Radarsoperatingon
this principle
[33]-[35]. Ina
areknown
as incoherentscatterradars
monostatic mode the backscattered power
is proportional to
the spectral content of electron density fluctuations atone-half
of the radio wavelength. It mustbeunderstood,therefore,
that such radars can sense the irregularities only in a very narrowspectralwindow.
On occasion,during the presence of
spread F irregularities, the radar returns have been observed
to increase in power by80 dB in a matter of few minutes [ 3 6 ] .
Thismeans thatin afewminutestheirregularityspectral
intensity canincrease by as much as 10' fold.This suggests
the highly dynamic nature of the phenomenon under study.
Recent experiments at the magnetic equator show that a certain type of spread F irregularities take the form of plumelike
structures and maybe caused by Raleigh-Taylor instabilities
[ 3 7 ] . Another remote sensing technique deals with scintillationmeasurementsand
is thesubject of this review. Early
reviews on this subject have been made by Booker [ 381 using
Bac
Strong
Scottiring
and Transequatorlal
(Magneticoily
WAVE NUMBER
(nil)
328
0045
0030
0015
0000
2345
Fig. 6. Sample data of 136-MHzsignals transmitted by the geostationary satellite SMSl parked at 90'W
andreceivedatNatal,
Brazil
(35.23OW, 5.8S'S, dip -9.6') on November 15-16, 1978. The bottom amplitude channel is approximately linear in decibels with a full
scale corresponding t o 18 dB. The top and middle polarimeter outputs vary linearly with the rotation of the plane of polarization. A
full-scale change corresponds t o a rotation of 180' or a change of
1.89 X 10" el/m2 in electron content.
The times given are in local
mean time with UT
= LMT + 03 : 00. Two successive depletions in
electroncontentwithaccompanied
rapid scintillations are separated by about 30 min in time.
- ;2)
= (E(;1)
E(;2
1)
(2.1)
(2.2b)
Since .$is real, there must exist symmetry conditions
BE(-;)
and Qpg.(-2)
= ' D E (I?).
= B E();
(2.3)
""I
m
BE(')=
@,(K)K sinKrdK.
(2.4b)
In someapplications, the one-dimensionaland two-dimensional spectra are needed and they are defined, respectively, by
OD
OSPHERE
THE
YEHSCINTILLATIONS
AND
INWAVE
LIU: RADIO
329
For the special case of isotropic irregularities, the three-dimensional spectrum is related to the one-dimensional spectrum by
95( K )
0: K
- ~
(2.12)
which decays exponentially for large K . The correlation function (2.9) has the desired properties in that, at the origin = 0,
B E has amaximum value, a vanishing first derivative, anda
negative second derivative as discussed by Shkarofsky [ 571.
The corresponding one-dimensional spectrum can be obtained
by substituting (2.9) into (2.5). The integral can be evaluated
exactly to give
(2.8)
a-
(2.14)
P- 2
KX
J-
2)
dz
(2.15)
330
A N ( p', z) d z .
The structure function for the optical path DA$( p ' ) is just the
mean square value of, the optical path difference between two
points separated by p on the z = constant plane. Carrying out
several steps, this optical path structure function can be shown
to be
(2.17)
BA&) =(A@($)A@(;
+;I))
= C 2 B ~ ~ , <(2.18)
~ >
= 2lrZ fl@AN(;l,
0)
(2.24)
for path lengths z greater than the correlationlength as is
usually the case. The optical path structure function is therefore directly proportional t o theelectroncontentstructye
function. If ANis apmogeneous random field,thenDAN ( r ) =
2 [BAN(O)- BAN(^)] which reduces (2.24) t o
+
d 2 K l
(2.19)
-00
-b
where K~ = ( K ~ K,,).
,
As is usually the case, the background
path z is much larger than the correlation length, the limits of
integration in the middle expression of (2.19) are extended to
--DO and 00 asshown.Inserting
(2.19) into (2.18) relates directly the correlation of the optical path to the correlation of
ionospheric irregularities.
In the literature of wave propagation in random media, the
integrated correlation function occurs frequently and is usually
denoted by the symbol A, viz.,
00
AANG)
=J
BANG,
(2.20)
dz.
z)
-00
(2.21)
The corresponding one-dimensional spectrum is then
E(;, t
+ t ' ) = ((;-
ZOt',
t)
(2.28)
K ( ~ - ~( ) r/ ~o e ) . (2.22)
z0
(2.29)
IONOSPHERE
where W E(a)
is the frequency spectrum ona time series.$(;, t )
obtained by a fixed
observer. The prime on W indicates differentiation.Equation (2.31) relates the spatial spectrum to
the frequency spectrumof an isotropic frozen random field.
is generalized to includenonfrozen
When thespectrum
flows, we must take into account the possibility that irregularities maychange with time as they move. Indoing so it is
desirable to strikeabalancebetweenareasonablysimple
analyticexpression that can bemanipulatedmathematically
andthe physical notionthat large irregularities are nearly
frozen, at least for a short time, and small irregularitiesare
in the dissipation range and hence can vary with time. After
considering these factors, Shkarofsky [ 6 1] proposes to decompose the spectrum S in the following way:
$ Gw)
S E G ,a)=
(2.32)
:I
$(;,
w ) dw = 1.
(2.33)
by probe carrying satellites and rockets, So becomes the velocity of the p:obe.
The co2elation function of such in-situ data
then BE( r ( t ) , t ) where r ( t ) = G o t describes the probe trajectory as a function of time. A question that arises is whether
such an experimentally determinable correlation function can
yield the desirable information about the irregularity spectrum.
This problem has been investigated [ 621 in what is termed the
ambiguities of deducing the rest frame irregularity spectrum
from the moving frame spectrum. Let PE(a)
be the spectrum
deduced in the moving frame, viz.,
00
(2.39)
t ) ,-jut d t .
In the interest of not flooding this review paper with too many
symbols,letthe+argument of $ denote the Fourier domain.
For example $( K , t ) is obtained from $ (I?, w )by a one-dimensional Fourier inversion with respect to w . With such a notation, the spectral decomposition scheme (2.32) plus the normalization (2.33) implies that
$(Z,t=O)=l
BE(;, t = 0) =BE(;).
(2.34)
$(;,
331
+ +
t )= e - i K . v o t
(2.35)
for frozen flows. When flows are generalized to include dissipations it is possible to propose many forms for $ [ 61 1. If
the decay is caused entirely by velocityfluctuationswitha
standard deviation uu,(2.35) can be generalized to
(2.36)
The frozen field result of (2.35) is obtained from (2.36) for
large irregularities (viz., small K ) and short time as is desired
based on physicalreasoning
discussed earlier. By Fourier
transforming (2.36) withrespect to t andsubstitutingthe
result in (2.32), the space-time spectrum becomes
As an example, let
BE
= e- I r
(2.42)
(2.43)
00
Hence
when
t <<I&,
(2.43) reduces to
which is
the one-dimensional correlation function along the path of a
moving probe,in agreementwith (2.40). Notice thatthe
frozen field is valid only for times short compared with the
time required to move through the irregularitywith an rms
the correlavelocity. In the other extreme when t >> I/&,
tion (2.43) approaches asymptotically to zero as r - 3 , as d e
duced earlier.
In general, instead of a Gaussian correlation function (2.42),
the integral in (2.41) is difficult to evaluate analytically. The
moving frame spectrum Pc(w) in this generalcase is related
332
TO TRANSMITTER AT-CD
lO.O.2
RECEIVER
-00
(2.44)
for probes moving along the z-axis with a constant velocity &.
The relation (2.44) is complicated. By knowing P ( o ) only,
it does not seem possible t o invert (2.44) to get @E(2) without making additional assumptions.
111. SCINTILLATION
THEORIES
A . Statement of the Problem
With the statisticalcharacterization of the irregularities as
discussed in Section 11, we can model the ionospheric scintillation phenomenon. Let us consider the situationshown jn Fig. 7.
A region of random irregular electron density structures is
located from z = 0 to z = L . A time-harmonic electromagnetic
wave is incident2n the irregular slab at z = 0 and received on
the ground at ( p , z ) . It will be assumed that the irregularity
slab can be characterized by a dielectric permittivity
e = (E) [ 1
+ el (i,.t)~
(3.1)
flO/f
2)o
(3.2)
Here, f p o is the plasma frequency corresponding to the background electron density N o and f is the frequency of the incident wave. In the percentage fluctuation A N / N o = 5, the temporal variations, caused by either the motion of irregularities
as in a frozen flow or the turbulence evolution as in a nonfrozenflow, or both, are assumed to be much slower than
the period of the incidentwave.
As the wave propagates through the irregularity slab, to the
first order, only the phase is affected by the random fluctuations in refractive index. This phase deviation is equal to
k o ( A 4 ) , where ko is the free space wavenumber and A@is the
optical pathfluctuation defined in (2.16). Therefore, after
the wave has emerged from the random slab, its phase front
is randomly modulated as shown in Fig. 7. As this wave p r o p
agates to the ground, the distorted wave front will set up an
interference pattern resulting in amplitude fluctuations. This
OSPHERE
THE
YEHSCINTILLATIONS
AND
INWAVE
LIU: RADIO
333
is the distance the wave has traveled in the random medium and 1 is the characteristic scale of the irregularities,
which can be taken as certainmean scale size of the
In addition,the backscatirregularities [ 241,[213].
tered power is negligible, corresponding to ( E : ) kz << 1.
v) Theattenuation of thecoherent wave field perunit
wavelength is small, corresponding t o ( E : ) k2 << 1.
When assumption iii) is satisfied, it follows that (3.5) can be
approximated by
aU
aZ
- 2 j k - + + f ~ = - k ~ ~ l (O
; ) <~ Z, < L
(3.6)
aU
aZ
- 2 j k - + V f uz=>OL, .
(3.7)
uo(P> = ~0 exp [ - M A I .
(3.8)
(3.13)
We have used (2.19) in deriving (3.13) and L is the thickness
of the irregularity slab; @ A N ( ; L , 0) is the three-dimensional
spectrum of the density fluctuation AN with K , set equal to
zero.
The averaged field is attenuated according to (3.12). This is
due to the fact that part of the energy has gone t o the incoherent part of the total field which is generated by the random
phase front.
The average intensity on the ground can also be computed
from (3.10)
(u(p,z)u*(;,z))=A;
(3.14)
2)
- is1
(3,z)l
= A0 exp W G , z)l
(3.15)
where re = eZpo4nm is the classical electron radius and A N T ( p)
is the deviation of thetotalelectroncontentthroughthe
irregularity slab.
As the wave u 0 ( d ) propagates to the ground, the field can
be computed using the Kirchhoffs diffraction formula [ 231.
Under the forward scattering assumption, the Fresnel diffraction results in [ 231
(3,
(3.10)
It is interesting t o note that (3.10) satisfies (3.7) which is the
equation governing the wave propagating below the irregularity
slab under the forward scattering condition.
(3.16)
From (3.16) we obtain the following results for the moments
334
of
(3.17)
Under the assumption of weak scintillationsuch that the
higher order term (VI$) can be neglected in (3.22), we obtain the equation for the Rytov solution
[ 241 , [ 581
(3.23)
(3.18)
where @@(
by
@ ~ ( $ ~ ) = h 2 r ~ @ A N T ( $ ~ ) = 2 ~ L h 2 r 0~).@ A N ( ~ ~ ,
(3.19)
From (3.18) and (3.19), we obtain the mean-square fluctuations for and S1
(3.24)
+-
/-r
(3.20)
and the powerspectra
departure
ax(2~)
=Sin2 (K:Z/2k)@~($l)
= 2nLh2r,? S h 2 ( K f Z / 2 k ) @ ~ ~ ( 20)
1,
COS
(K:Z/~~)@AN($~,
0). (3.21)
lp
p 1/2(z - L)1 dp
(3.25)
x,
(x>
K?
KfL ?rk3
@,s(K;) = 7 sin -sin - (z - L/2)@&,
K l
2k
k
0).
(3.26)
The correlationfunctions can be obtainedfrom (3.26). We
note that by letting L + 0 in the expressions for @,,@s, we
obtainthe phase screen results (3.21) if thesubstitution
=
(r:h4/nz)@AN is made.
Several aspects of this result are specially useful in the anal-
10
335
I?
14
16
20
18
Fig. 8. Filter
function
for
amplitude
scintillation
plotted
against
normalized wavenumber Kfzlk. Dashed line, marked L = 0 km,
corresponds to the phase screen model.
sf
We shall consider
most important
is thescintillation
intensity of the
( I Z )-
(3.27)
sf
= 4(X*).
we
s4 a ~
( + 2~ ) 1 4a f - ( 2 + ~ ) / 4 .
(3.29)
..
The phase filteMg function given in the square brackets of
( 3 . 3 0 ) is very different from the amplitude filtering function,
which as discussed in the lastsection shows Fresneleffects.
In fact, the major contribution to (St)comes from the large
irregularities. It is easy to showfrom ( 3 . 3 0 ) that (St)is
proportional to l / f z .
3) FrequencyPowerSpectra:
Inpracticalsituations,
the
irregularities in the ionosphere are in motion mostof the time.
This motion will cause the diffraction pattern on the ground
to drift. This process is responsible for producing a temporal
variation of the signal received by a single receiver. In most
cases, forradio signals transmittedfromthe
geostationary
satellite, this is what one observes as the scintillation signal.
If the "frozen-in'' assumption discussed in Section 11-E for the
irregularities is valid, then the temporal behavior of the signal
can be transformed into the spatial behavior.In other cases
where the radio signals are transmittedfromatransit
satellite, the speed of the satellite usually is much faster than the
drift speed of the irregularities so that the temporal variations
of the signal received by a single receiver can be considered as
the result of the radio beam scanning over the spatial variations of frozen irregularities. In both cases, therelation between temporal and spatial variationsis a simple translation by
themotion.Thefrequency
powerspectrum of the signal
received at a single station denoted by
is related to the
spatial power spectrum by[ 5 1 ]
@(a)
,-+-
336
where
D. Parabolic Equation
And for 52 <<
5
2
,
(3.34)
O
*D
(3.35)
For the amplitudespectrum
ax,the
two asymptotesmeet as
I is the ratio of the two integrals in (3.33) and (3.34). Therefore, on the log-log plot of the spectra, one observes the highfrequency asymptotes having a slope of (1 - p ) . At the lowfrequency end such that 52152~<< 1, the amplitude spectrum
approachesa constantindependent of 52, while the phase
spectrum s t i l l has an asymptotic slope of (1 - p ) . The rolloff
52~.This
for the amplitude spectrum occurs near 52 =
again reconfirms the intuitive picture that irregularities of sizes
greater than the size of the f i t Fresnel zone do not contribute
much to the amplitude scintillation. We note from this result
that large-scale irregularities dominate the phase fluctuations.
+m
, and
For a Gaussian irregularity spectrum, the behavior of 9
!& are quite different [95]. Indeed, the investigation of the
shape of the observed scintillation spectra has played an important role in determining the power-law nature of the ionospheric irregularity spectrum [41], [ 421.The above are the
basic results for weak scintillation under the assumptions of
Rytovapproximation.
There is experimental evidence that
the Rytov results for the amplitude scintillation remain valid
for S4 approachinga value of 0.3, while phase fluctuations
have a wider range of validity [ 901.
The above derivations are based on the normal incidence of
the wave upon the irregularity slab. The results can be generalized to cases of oblique incidence [70], [96]-[991. It can be
shown that under general ionospheric conditions the effects of
diffraction are not altered by the orientation of the scattering
52,-
Method
where
=IOD
+m
A,(;)
B E ( ; , f) df = 2nJ
0) ei'l.'dZKL
-m
(3.37)
is the two-dimensionalcorrelationfunction.This
is the socalled Markov approximation [ 581, [ 661.
Starting from theparabolic equations (3.6), with the Markov
approximation (3.36), it is possible to derive a closed set of
equations for the statistical moments of the field u , by using
functional derivatives or diagram techniques [ 1041, [ 1OS].
Let us now introduce the general moments for the complex
amplitude u(p', z , k ) where the frequency of the wave is explicitly denote?bythe
paramete: k . For convenience, we
introduce s' = ( p , k ) and express u ( s , z ) as the field. The mnth
THE
IN
IONOSPHERE
337
+ +
+
rm,n(Z,Sl,Sz,...,Sm;S1,...rSn)
=(u1u2 *
+
.1(
u*
a2
- up) (3.38)
-GAUSSIAN
-.
- POWER LAW
+I
C =I55
&=1.6%9
=2.97
+I
a, . . .
.s . . Sn)
+
i
i
Sm,
+
01
02
03
54
05
06
07
08
IO
09
P/fO
(3.39)
v;
rl,o
z > L.
{-~~AL[AAN(O)- AAN(Z-
= A : exp [-
3 D+($- 311
?)I}
(3.43)
(3.40)
= ~ X [$I
P
(3.44)
For plane wave incident such that 02. = 0, (3.40) yields the
solution, forz > L
( U ) = A exp
~ [ - ~ ~ A ~ L A ~ =( o A) /exp
~~ I[-&/21.
This agrees with the plane wave solution from the general
phase screen approach (3.12). We note that the measurement
of ( u ) will enable one t o obtain the important parameter 4:
for the ionospheric irregularity slab. In the following, we shall
presentsomeresults
obtainedfromthe
scintillation theory
based on (3.39) and other equivalent versions of it. Emphasis
will be onquantitiesthat
are observed inthe scintillation
experiments.
1 ) Mutual Coherence Function: Consider 11,1 = ( u ( z , p,
k)u * (z,
k)). The equation for rl, becomes
z,
eXp
[ jzl (p - ?)I d 2 K l / K f
where Ak = k - k.
This Rytov solution has been used t o study pulse propagation in the ionosphere [ 1101 and t o characterize the transionospheric communication channel [ 1 1 1,1 [ 1 121.
Although certain asymptotic solutions of (3.42) have been
studied [ 1091, the general solution can only be obtained by
numericalintegration.
Fig. 9 shows someresults from such
computations [ 1131.Intransionosphericcommunication
applications, it is useful to define a correlation coefficient for
the complex amplitude
c,
I((u - ( u ) ) (U* - ( U * ) ) ) I
I(
- l r 1 , 1 ( s , ~ , k , k ) -( u ) ( u * ) ~
[( ( u 2 > - ( u > 2 ) ((Ut? - (u>2)]lI2 *
(3.42)
rl.,l is
mutual
(3.45)
(3.46)
338
C = 8nl:rzX ( ( A N ) )
to= L / k , l $
( = z/kol $
X=- A k
(3.47)
k+ k
r2,
=r4 =r2,2
(3.48) with
(3)
where D@
is the
structure
function
for
the
Introducing new variables
-+
R =+
(Jl
1;
(=Z/LT
phase.
=
(;l
- pz
i1= 3 (511
an initial condition
+p; - 3;)
- pl
(3.55)
and
IT = (87~rzC&X)-(/~)
LT = [8n2(2n)-P/r ~ C & k ~ ~ Z ) ] - ( ~ p ) (3.56)
.
(3.49)
(3.48) can be transformed to
41
r4 = A : at z = ( = 0. Here in (3.54)
/IT
& =2; /IT q+ = KllT
For z
(3.50)
where F is the expression in the curly brackets in (3.48) involving the combination of the phase structure functions ex%ressed in the new variables. Note that F does not depend on
R ; this is due t o the fact that the random field involved is
homogeneous. If we specialize in plane wave incidence, V R = 0
and we can set p = 0 in F without loss of generality. Equation
(3.50) then becomes
r4
st
In terms of the power spectrum, the F function can be expressed as
+-
F ( ~ 1 , ; 2 ) = 4 ~ [ ( J @ ( z l ) ( 1-
C O S ~ ~ - ; ~ )
-OD
(1 - cos 21
;2)
dK1
(3.52)
I Z 1-P
~
(3.53)
1
=A40
r4((,0,01 - 1.
(3.58)
INTILLATIONS
WAVE
YEH
RADIO
AND LIU:
IONOSPHERE
IN THE
339
2ow
(3.59)
where
0.0
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
a4
0.5
S, AT 5 0 0 MHz
Fig. 11. Spectral indices for two frequencies against scintillation index
S, . The ionosphere conditions are the same as those in Fig. 10.
2 L=SOkrn fP=707MHz
3. L = 5 0 k r n f,=IOMHz
Frequency f (MHz)
Fig. 12. Spectral index as a function of frequency for different ionospheres. The irregularity model is the same as in Fig. 10.
Again the phase structure function D6 appears in the expression. The scintillation index S: can be obtained from (3.59)
-00
For weak scintillation, (3.59) can be approximated by expanding exp (g), which will then lead to results similar to
those shown in (3.21) and (3.26). For power4aw ionospheric
irregularities of the form of (3.53) (valid for K~ < I K I I < ~ i ) ,
the scintillation index can be found explicitly [ 861
where J is a numerical factor dependent on the degree of anisotropy of the irregularities [ 861, r is the gamma function,
and { is the normalized propagation distance defined in (3.5 5).
As discussed above, the general solution for S4 will be a function of 5 only (3.58). From (3.62), it-follows that thegeneral
scintillation index will depend on S40 in a universal manner,
independent of the ionospheric condition and the propagation
and hence S40 can be
geometry [ 1151. The parameter
considered as the strengthparameter that characterizes the
level of scintillation for the ionospheric applications.
Based on (3.591, asymptotic expressions for S4 and the
power spectrum for large values of 5 (or S40) have been derived for different ranges of values for p [ 8 l l , 182 l , [85 l ,
[ 861 . For the case p 2 4, the scintillation index is found to exceed unity for certain intermediate values of {. This is known
as focusing. As 5 increases further, S4 approachesunity.
This behavior is also found in results from numerical computations [53], [ 1721.
3 ) CorrelationFunction and CoherenceInterval: The correlation fynctionfortheintensity
scintillationis given by
r4(5,rl, r2 = 0). For weak scintillation this function can be
approximated by the results from the Rytov solution (Fourier
transform of (3.26)). For strong scintillation, numerical solutions of (3.54) and (3.57) give us this correlation function.
Fig. 13 shows an example from such computation. Two intensity correlation functions are shown for certainionospheric
conditions. It is interesting t o note the faster dropoff of the
correlation atthe
lower frequency, corresponding t o the
decorrelation for stronger scintillations. This decorrelation is
caused by multiple scattering of the wave from irregularities.
As discussed in Section 111-A, at higher frequencies so that the
scintillation is in the single-scatter regime, the most dominant
tp/
340
D@(Tcuo)= 1
(3.64)
for the multiple-scatter regime. For the power-law irregularity
spectrum of the type (3.531, it can be shown that [86]
(3.65)
f,=5MHr
LI00krn
r,=Wrn
Transverse C o a h t e a (m)
O 5 0
00
200
5ooIxx)x)(x,
Frequency f (MHz)
where C is a parameter depending on the strength of the irregularity and the propagation geometry.
The power spectrum for the intensity can be obtained from
the solution of (3.54) and (3.57). One approach is to Fourier
transformthetwoequationsin
andcarryoutcertainiterative solutions for the resulting differential-integral equations
[581, 1 181, [ 1 191. Some asymptotic results have been obtained from the phase screen approach [ 811-[83]. The spectrum has the same high-frequency asymptote as for the weak
scintillation case, but the rolloff frequency is increased, indicating a broadening of the spectrum which corresponds to the
decorrelation of the signal. There is also anincrease in the
low-frequencycontent of thespectrum,corresponding to a
long tail of the correlation function.
In this section, we have presented the results of a multiplescatter theory for ionospheric scintillations based on the PEM.
Some related analytic results from phase screen theory are also
discussed.Recently,there
have been somepromising new
developments using the path-integral method
[ 1201 -[ 1233.
The method is especially suitable for strong scintillations in
the saturation region.
The discussion of any scintillation theory will not be complete if one does notmentiontheprobabilitydistributions
of the scintillating signals. Indeed, t h i s is an area that is least
developed in ionosphericscintillationtheory.Inthefollowing section; abrief discussion on this subject will be given.
(r
(3.63)
r 4 ( z , & , o ) = 1 +exp [-D@(;~)I.
Therefore, the coherence intervalT, can be defmed by
-00
34 1
F. Polarization Scintillation
In previous discussions of this chapter, the background medium is assumed to be isotropic. This is of course not exactly
true in theionosphere.Thepresence
of the earth magnetic
field makes the ionosphere a magnetc-ionic medium and hence
anisotropic. Fortunately, most radio frequencies
used in the
ionosphericscintillationexperimentsor
in transionospheric
communicationsare
all much higher thantheionospheric
electron gyrofrequency, which is roughly 1.4 MHz. Under the
high radio-frequency h i t , the chief magneto-ionic effect on
wave propagation is the Faraday effect [ 1331. The Faraday
effect is caused by continuouschangeinrelativephase
between the two characteristic waves which are counter rotating
andcircularlypolarized.Eachcharacteristic
wave will experience scattering if there are present electron density irregularities. Under the high-frequency apcroximation a stochastic
wave equation for the electric
field E can be derived and it
shows thatthecharacteristic
waves arenotcoupled by the
scattering process [ 1341. Making the weak and forward scatter approximation, this wave equation can be solved using the
Rytov method by assuming
~ ( i =)
1;(i)
2
e-pc(i)z
i=O
or x
(3.68)
8')
where
is the normalized ith characteristic vector (circular
in the present case), k(') is the propagation constantof the ith
mode, and @(j)is given by [ 1341
I)]d'p'.
(3.69)
This expression suggests that the resultant wave has a fluctuating phase given by Re (@('I + &))/2 and a fluctuating ampli+ @(x))/2. On the receiving plane, the
tude given by Im (@('I
resultant is linearly polarized but its plane of polarization fluctuates about the mean (in our case the mean is polarized along
the x-axis because of the choice of coordinate axes) with an
angle 52 =(@('I
- @(x))/2.Analyticalexpressionsforthe
variance of these fluctuations have been obtained for irregularities with Gaussian spectrum [ 1341 and power-law spectrum
[ 1351.Theyshowimportantdepolarizationeffectsup
to
136 MHz in the ionosphere.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL
RESULTS
A . Irregularity Structures
We have seen from the earlier discussions that the scintillation of radio signals is intimately related to the structure of
ionospheric irregularities, i.e., the space-time behavior of AN.
Even when restricted to the part of the structure or the spectrum that affects transionospheric radio
waves only, the spatial
scaleswill range fromsubmeters to tens of kilometers. At
present there is no single experimental technique that is capable
of producing information over a volume of tens of kilometers
on each side with fine details down to submeter range instant
by instant. What one can hope for is to design an experiment
so that a particular piece of information can be extracted. If
one desires moreinformation,amultitechniqueexperiment
has to be designed, as has been done recently
in many campaigns [ 1361-[ 1381. As far as scintillation is concerned, one
is interested in knowing the horizontal size of the irregularity
patch, its height, its thickness, the background electron density, the variance of fractional electron density fluctuations,
and the irregularityspectrum.
Only after possessing such
information on a global basis can one attempt to construct a
global scintillation model [ 1391. We review briefly such information in the following.
At equator the irregularity patch size has been measured to
be up to 1000 km in the east-west direction with a preference
in the 150-300-km range [ 1401-[ 1421 and t o be 1000 km in
thenorth-southdirection
[ 1431. This north-south size is
comparable to the airglow meaurements made recently, which
areindicative
of regions of depletedelectronsorbubbles
[ 1441, [ 1451. The east-west patch size is somewhat larger
than the average buble size of 70 km measured by the Faraday
is reasonable since it is
station and drift methods [471; this
known that scintillations may exist even when the radio ray
path is outside of an equatorial bubble. In temperate latitudes,
the east-west patch size may exceed 1000 km and the northsouth size is generally of the order of several hundred kilometers [ 1461-[ 1481. In all geographic regions, the nighttime
irregularities that produce scintillations are foundt o be mostly
embedded in the F region ionosphere from about 200 km to
1000 km [138], [145], [149]-[151], but daytime scintillationsare caused mainly by E region irregularities [ 1491,
[ 1521, [ 1531. The thickness of the patch is found to vary
fromtens of kilometers to hundreds of kilometers [ 1381,
342
1141, [371,[1541,[1551.
There is some evidence, at least
at temperate latitudes, that the fractional fluctuation of electron density is roughly uniform even though the background
plasma density may vary with height [ 1561. This means that
the electron density fluctuations near the F peak are generally
larger than that at other heights. The percent fluctuations in
electron density are usually very small, but can be as large as
nearly 100 percent at the equator [ 1391.
In early days of scintillation study the irregularity spectrum
was assumed t o be Gaussian mainly for mathematical convenience [231, [ 101]. The first suggestion that the spectrum
might follow a power-law form came from satellite scintillation data [40], [41]. Making use of the phase screen scintillation theory, it was then deduced that the implied irregularity
spectrum had a power-law form given by (2.8) [42]. At about
the same time the electron density data measured by the probe
on board the satellite OG06 became available and a power-law
spectrum was also obtained [43],[44], [ 1571. However,
these in-situ measurements limited the spectrumgiven by (2.8)
to a two-decade range from K = lo-' m-l (scale size about 7
km) to K = lo-' m-l (scale size about70 m). The ground
scintillation observations also had difficulties in extending the
spectrum because of data noise and the well-known Fresnel filtering effect discussed in Section I11 [ 1581. Yeh et al.[ 531 then
suggested to combine the scintillation or in-situ data with the
radar backscatter data for the purpose of extending the spectrum. This is useful because aradar senses the irregularity
spectrum at one-half of its operating wavelength when conAs a matter of fact using
figured in the backscattermode.
the published radar data at 50 MHz for the equatorial spread-F
[36] , a preliminary calculation showed the power-law could
be extended t o K = 2 m-' (scale size down to,3 m) [531. With
more careful calibration of the radar and the use of coordinatedscintillation data, the radar returns were found t o be
more than 40 dB less than that expected,based on the extrap
olated power law down to 3 m [54]. Therefore, these authors
suggested a Gaussian cutoff of the power-law spectrum near
the 0
' ion gyro-radius which they took to be 3.35 m. Such a
cutoff was found to be inconsistent, at least sometimes, with
thelater observed radar returns at 1mand 36 cm [ 1591[161], and even as small as 11 cm [551. Even thoughthe
precise nature of the spectrum down to such a small scale (not
much larger than the Debye length of 6.9 cm as estimated in
[55]) is not known, its generation must require a sequence of
plasma instability processes peculiar to the equatorial
geometry
and environment.Coordinatedexperimentsshowed
that the
3-m radar scatter would usually disappear around or later than
local midnight even when the UHF and L-band scintillations
were very strong [ 138I . This suggested the possible change of
the inner scale with time. Furthermore, more careful analysis
of both the scintillation data and the in-situ data gave evidence
that even the spectral index itself evolved with the irregularity
intensity [ 1621. These data showed a power-law index decreasing with the strength of phase scintillation.There was
also evidence indicating that the equatorial irregularities may
have a two-component power-law spectrum witha higher
spectral index forsmaller irregularities [ 2 11 .
As to the three-dimensional nature of the irregularities, the
f i t suggestion for magnetic field alignment was made by
Spencer [ 1631. Early reports of experimental measurements
on the size showed an axial ratio of 4 through 8 to 1 as r e
viewed by Herman [32] and the more recent results using a
large array [ 1561. The enhancement of scintillations when the
PROCEEDINGS
IEEE, OF THE
orbiting satellite moved within the same L-shell as the observational station led Rino and his colleague [ 1641, [ 1651 t o suggest sheet-like irregularities in the auroral zone.
B. Signal Statistics
As discussed in Section 111-E, there does not exist at present
a satisfactory and rigorous theory which predicts the probabilitydistributionfunction
of ascintillation signal. It is only
known that when the scintillation is well inthesaturation
regime, the amplitude distributionapproaches that given by
Rayleigh [ 12 11. Several heuristic arguments have been proposed that lead t o simple distributions as working models.
Over the years, four models have gained popularity among
investigators inthe field. The first is based onthe phasechanging screen idea plus some assumptions about the statistics of electrondensity irregularities. This modelpostulates
that the phase undergoes a random walk in a phase-changing
screen and becomes a Gaussian process [ 671. When this idea
is extended by using the Rytov solution, it is natural t o s u p
pose that the logarithmic amplitude and the phase are jointly
Gaussian [ 1321, [ 1661.Under this postulate, theintensity
has a log-normal distribution, and the phase has a normal distribution.If, instead of logarithmic signals, similar assump
tions are applied to the quadrature components
themselves, the
in-phase and quadrature components become jointly Gaussian.
This is our second model. In this case the general expressions
for the intensity and phase distributions are complicated, but
they lead naturally to Rician statistics and Rayleigh statistics
in limitingconditions [ 921, [ 1671. Thethird model is an
approximation t o Gaussian stastistics and is known as Nakagami-m distribution for intensity [ 1681, given by
The parameter m is equal to theinverse square of the scintillation index S4 [ 941. The recent realization that theirregularity
spectrum falls slowly in a power-law form with the wavenumber suggests the coexistence of large irregularities that produce
only refractional effects and small irregularities that produce
only diffractional effects. This suggestion led Fremouw e t 171.
[ 1691 t o propose a two-component model, which decomposes
multiplicatively the complex signal into a slow refractive component and a fast diffractive component. The diffraction component is postulated t o obey generalized Gaussian statistics,
and the refractive component obeys log-normal statistics. In
all these four models, the intensity and phase distributions are
uniquely defined by the second-order moments of the received
sg
i nas
l , which can be computed easily from the observed scintillation data. The distributions so obtained in each case can
be subjected t o chi-square tests against histograms of the
observed intensity and phase. This procedure has been carried
out by Fremouw et al. [ 1671 who find that the normal distribution has the overall best fit for thephase and the Nakagami-m
distribution has the overall best fit for theintensity.The
amplitude(orintensity)
distributions of scintillating radio
signals have been studied by many investigators [ 1251, [ 1701,
[ 171] and the Nakagami-m distributions have been found t o
represent a good fit for the intensityby Whitney et al. [ 1711.
This is furtherdemonstrated in Fig. 15takenfrom
Rino
[ 1721. But the results of Fremouw et al. [ 1671 suggest that
a suitable bivariate distribution would be one that reduces t o
the product of the Nakagami-m distribution for the intensity
YEH AND
IONOSPHERE
LIU: THE
RADIO
SCINTILLATIONS
WAVE
IN
-"-.
2
ANCON, VHF,
DAY 0 6 3 , 0349 U T
08B. 0346 UT
RELATIVEINTENSITY
ANCON, L-BAND,
DAY 089.0415 UT
ANCON, VHF.
0 8 4 , 1306
D A YU T
, li"$,
0
2
KWAJ. UHF,
K W A I . L-BAND.
DAY
1218
104. DAVUT
34
ANCON, VHF,
DAY 056.MZO UT
15
26
RELATIVE INTENSllY
and the normal distribution for the phase in the limit of zero
correlation between the two variates.
1 .
C. Scintillation Index
Experimentally the scintillation index is conveniently used
as an indicator of scintillation strength. In the literature there
are a number of such indices in general use. These indices of
course can be converted and related to each other empirically
or through a given probability distribution [ 941. For quantitative work, the scintillation index S4 defined by (3.27) has
been found to be most useful. Under weak scintillation conditions, the scintillation index S40 has a f-" frequency dependence with n = ( p + 2)/4 as given by (3.29). In the ionosphere
the spectral index p is found to be 4 1 [42], which implies
n = 1.5 f 0.25. Since experimentally S4 indices are measured
at discrete frequencies, t o testthe
frequencydependence
between any two pairs of frequencies, say f l and f z , one can
define [ 173I
L
00
0.1
02
03
a4
05
S I 0 9 WO MHz
r4
344
r4(3',
4.
0
t
345
S, at 360MHz
2.5
c0.02
1.6
IJB
093
2 II %
f 13%
f 9%
+25%
214%
+20?4
a91
0.06,0.13
I'4 \
r
H
z
O5
1
40
360
I40
FREQUENCY (MHz)
2 r - - - - - l
GROUP I
dominated by the low-frequency components, and its spectrum is of theform ! 2 2 - ' - p down to the lowestfrequency
allowed by detrending of the data. An example of the 4@MHz
amplitude and phase spectra is shown in Fig. 21 [ 501. The
fact thatthe phase is dominatedby low-frequency c o m p e
nents poses a practical problem, viz., the results on statistical
analysis of the phase data depend on the cutoff frequency of
the detrending process as found by several authors [ 501, [ 901.
Since our understanding of the spectrum under weak scintillation conditions is nearly complete, it is possible t o compare
with the theoretically computed spectrum by adoptinga
model irregular ionosphere. This has been done [ 5 1 I . The
degree of agreement between the experimentally observed
spectra of a 40- and 140-MHz amplitude and the corresponding spectra computed based on the theory are depicted in Fig.
22. The agreement is striking. Furthermore,the S4 indices
for the data are 0.54 rf. 0.04 at 40 MHz and 0.076 rf. 0.006 at
140 MHz, while the corresponding theoretical S4 indices are
0.59 and 0.077, respectively. This comparison again shows
good agreement. The spectra at both frequencies show a highfrequency asymptote with
dependence
a
which yields
p = 4.5, a value close to 4.4 deduced from the consideration of
the radio-frequency dependence of S4 index discussed in the
last section. Additionally, the experimentally observed rolloff
frequencies are 0.025 Hz at 40 MHz, 0.045 Hz at 140 MHz,
and 0.07 Hz at 360 MHz which follow closely the theoretical
f1I2 dependence. When thespectra are normalized by their
respective rolloff frequency, the spectral curves on these three
radiofrequencies fall very closely on top of each other as
shown in Fig. 23 by Umeki et al. [511. These discussions
demonstrate not only the agreement between the theory and
experiment but also the internalconsistency of the results.
When the scintillation level increases to the saturationregime,
FfiECUENCY
iii
HZ
I .E-1
1 .E-2
\
L
= 3.3
SET 1A 40
PHASE
AMPLITUDE
DET9ENDEDDATA
.c2
is 1.628 rad. The cutoff
I1
9 0 % CONFIDENCE LIMITS
40 MHz
THEORETICAL
-40
+HI-
-___
- EXPERIMENTAL
341
IN THE IONOSPHERE
3 -10
S E T 1
NORMALIZED
40 MHz
IH+
- 30
-40
F1 I
140
MHz
360 MHz
I-
-I
FREQUENCY
Fig. 23. Power spectra BS a function of normalized frequency n / n ~ ,
where S2p is the rolloff frequency or the Fresnel frequency. The S,
scintillation indices are 0.54 at 4 0 MHz, 0.076 at 140 MHz, and 0.016
at 360 MHz. The data set is identical to that shown in Fig. 22. (After
Umekieral. [Sl].)
Y=Asin@
(4.3)
x1 = A 1 -A042/2
Y1 = A o 4 + A , 4 .
(4.4)
Equation (4.4) indicates that, for weak scintillations, the statistics of the in-phase component X1should be very similar t o
those of the .amplitude A l , and the statistics of the phasequadrature component Y l should be very similar to those of
the phase 4. These notions are born out by data plotted in
Fig. 25, which shows similarity between the amplitude and the
&-phase component, and Fig. 26, which shows similarity
between the phase and phasequadraturecomponent. However, situations change as scintillation levels increase. In the
saturation regime, the amplitude fluctuation is fast, due to the
decorrelation effect discussed earlier, and the phase fluctuation is large but slow because of domination by large irregularities. This combination of amplitude and phase fluctuations
renders the power to be divided nearly equally in the quadrature components. Support for this observation can be found
in Fig. 27, where the spectra for two quadrature components
nearly lay on top of each other. Additionally, the quadrature
components agree with the amplitude spectrum, as depicted
348
30
I I I l l
I l l 1
I l l
SET 3
NORMALIZED
40 MHz
S4=1.42
*
-
MHz
S4.054
360 MHz
S4 = 0.13
140
FREQUENCY
Fig. 24. Power spectra as a function of normalized frequency 52152F.
The S, scintillation index for each of three radio frequencies is shown
in thelegend. The ATS-6 data wererecorded on January 7, 1975,
0700-0750 UT. (After Umeki e t al. [S 11
.)
in Fig. 28. These results suggest that, under intense scintillation conditions, the power spectra of the two quadrature
components are controlled by the fast fluctuating amplitude.
The equalization of power between the two quadrature components comes about because of the slow but large phase
fluctuations [SO].
(3.41)
TABLE I
IONOSPHERIC SCINTILLATION STRENGTH PARAMETERS
c ~ N
DERIVED FROM
WIDEBAND
SATELLITEDATAAND
COMPARISON OF OBSERVED
AND COMPUTED PHASE FUNCTIONS
Pass
Freq. ( H H ~ )
K2R4"
1.02
378
0.984
2.06
0.854
447
K4
"
0 cs
- (rad)
~ ~
computed a
.1.90
0.86
0.241
1239
1.35
0.3
mean
1.76
378 0.59
1.43
0.85
0.72
0.55
0.99
0.35
349
P B H E R S P E C T R R . SET I V 1 I I O M H Z
AMPLITUDE
0
0
+I N - P H A S E
d
m
COMPONENT
9
0
90% C O N F I D E N C E L I M I T S
0
0
0
0
0
md
0
Eg
WO
57
c.
5s
ad
=?
0
0
m
I
=I
0
0
d
YI
. - ,
1. E-2
. .
F R E Q U E N C Y IN HZ
. .
...
1.bo
l.E-1
Fig. 25. Comparison of amplitude and in-phase component power spectra fy data recorded at 140 MHz, August 25, 1974, 0525-0548 UT.The S, scintillation index is 0.522 and the r m s phase fluctuation is 1.397.
(After Myers e t al. [ 501
.)
naryexamplescanbefoundin[1781,[1791.
V. TEMFQRALBEHAVIOR
A . Average Pulse Intensity and Two-Frequency
Mutual Coherence Function
The theoretical and experimental discussion in the previous
chaptersontheionospheric
scintillationphenomenon have
been mainly for monochromatic signals. In many situations,
especially for communication applications, and lately for
the
interstellar scintillation of pulsars [ 1801 -[ 1821, the evolution
of the temporal behavior of a signal as it propagates through
the irregularities is of interest. Consider a pulsed signal with a
carrier frequency w, and frequency spectrum f(o)incident
on the ionosphere irregularity slab (Fig. 7). The average pulse
intensity received on the ground can be shown to be given by
[I831
+(l(t))=IIF*(i12fF(i11)r1,,(i11,i12)
-00
. exp [i(ill- i 1 2 ) t - ( k , - k 2 ) z 1 d i l l
di12 (5.1)
rl,
rl,,
3)
rl,,
(5.2)
where @o is given by ( 3 . 1 3 ) and
dt =
32' - 3 z L + L 2 A4
4 kz
A0
(5.3)
350
POHER SPECTRR.
SET I V lUOMHZ
-PHASE
-8- PHASE QUADRRTURE
CBMPONENT
9OZ CONFIDENCE L I M I T S
1. E-2
FREQUENCY I N HZ
1. E - 1
1.00
Fig. 26. Comparison of phase and phasequadrature component power spectra for the same data as those shown
in Fig. 25. (After Myers er a2. [ S O ]
.)
= A o + A2p2 + A4p4
(5.4)
tions
On the other hand, underextremely strong scintillation conditions such thatthe transverse correlationdistance of the
field becomes small as compared with that of theirregularities,
asymptotic solutions for
can be obtained [ 1091, [ 1861,
[ 1871. These asymptotic .expressions can then be used in
(5*1) to compute the average
calPulse
in general,
cannot be obtained analytically.Instead,
(3.42) has been solved numerically as discussed in Section
111-Dl. However, these numerical solutions are not easily a p
plicable in (5.1) to obtain the average pulse intensity.
In many applications, the exact shape of the pulse may not
be needed.Rather,
rough descriptionssuch as thetime of
arrival and the pulse broadening caused by the
random scattering are important. This leads naturally tothe idea of the
temporal moments.
rl.
rl,l
:l
F * ( s ~ , ejkzz
)
. {a" [F(Stl)rl,l
e - j k l z ~ / a ~ : } n., = n-,d n 2 .
(5.6)
In order to interpret the temporal moments in terms of physiwe impose two conditions: i)
condition M ( O ) ( z )= 1 which normalizesthe energy of received
signal t o unity and ii) time origin condition M(')(O) = 0 which
sets the time origin at the center of the symmetric envelope of
the incident signal. The normalization condition requires
(5.8)
P +-
(5*5)
Substituting (5.1) into (5.5), we obtain after some manipula-
We note from (5.6) that for the temporal moments, the complete expression for the tw6frequency mutualcoherence function is not needed. Instead rl, and its derivatives evaluated
351
*PHRSE
1. E-2
CBHPONENT
OURDRRTURE COMPONENT
90% C O N F I D E N C E LIMITS
F R E Q U E N C Y I N Hi!
1.00
1.E-1
Fig. 27. Comparison of power spectra of two quadrature components of signals at 4 0 MHz, August 23, 1974,
0505-0558. The scintillation index is 1.30 and the rms phase fluctuation is 2.677 rad. (After Myers eral. [ S O ] . )
a,
at
= sZz are the quantities that are required in evaluating
M ( " ) . This suggests the expansion of
in terms of the
variable 6 = ( k z - k l ) / k z
and
If we let
rl,
(5.10)
I'!:!,
.* ,
The temporal moments M(") depend only on rl:],
Itturnsoutthatalthough
r l , l cannot be obtained
analytically in general, its derivatives evaluated at 6 = 0, the
r,cf)l's,can be solved exactly, independent of the strength of
the irregularities.
The physical interpretation of the first few temporal moments are quite obvious. M(')(z) can be interpreted as the
mean arrival time of the signal at position z. The second
moment is related t o the mean-square pulsewidth since M ( 2 ) [ M ( ' ) ] ' measures the broadening of the pulse. The higher
order moments are related t o the skewness, etc., of the dis-
rp).
(5.13)
At z = 0, F l , l = 1 so that W = 1. Equation (5.13) is then
solved for W by letting
W=Wo+w16+Wz6~+-~*.
(5.14)
LW, = g n ,
n = 0 , 1 , 2 , * .*
(5.15)
352
1 .E-2
FREOUENCY IN HZ
1 .oo
l.E-1
Fig. 28. Same data as Fig. 27 but for amplitude and in-phase component. (After Myers e t aZ. [ S O ]
aI'1,1
--
aZ
rl,
=o
v2rl,l,
z >L .
(5.20)
Equation(5.15)can
besolved in astraightforwardmanner.
With the initial conditions W O = 1, W1 = W 2 = . = O a t z = O ,
we obtain
(5.18)
and
PZ
.
I
-gn(f)
w~ .Io w o w
df,
n = 1,2,. *
I'ifik,
(5.21)
tu (z) = M(')(Z)/M(O).
(5.17)
wn =
-i
2(1- 6 ) k 2
and
go
.)
Forionospheric
[1911
that [ 1901,
application, it canbeshown
ta (z) = z/c
+',fI.
+ plf: + -
(5.22)
where the fmt term is the free space travel time at the speed
of light c. The second term is the excess time delay due to the
total electron content (TEC) of the ionosphere andis inversely
proportional to the square of frequency. a is given by
(5.19)
where f, = ( e 2 N o / 4 a 2 r n e o ) 1 /is
2 the plasma frequency of the
background ionosphere.
Thethirdterm
in (5.22) is inversely proportional to the
353
0'
(5.28)
Here ~ ( 0=)To is the original pulsewidth, T~ represents broadening due to dispersion,and r2 representsbroadeningcontributed by scattering Some numerical examples for the pulse
broadening effects in the ionosphere are given in [ 1911.
Moments higher than the second have also beenobtained
11931. The third moment is related to the skewness of the
pulse and the f o a moment is related to the kurtosis. These
of
higher momentscan be used to estimatethestretching
pulses due to propagationeffects.Theseestimates
have obvious implications in digital communications [ 191 ].
\
1 0 0
5oom
200
Frequency ( MHz 1
(5.29)
1'
f,'(z -
5)d f
(5.24)
(5.25)
We note that instead of the correlation functionA A N for electron density fluctuation A N ( ; ) , the correlation function for
the percentageelectrondensityfluctuation
A N / N o is used
here. This is due to the fact that when the background density
field A N / N o ,
variation is taken into account,therandom
rather than A N itself, is more likely to be homogeneous[ 1921.
,
Therefore, in deriving (5.24), A,, instead of A A ~appears.
The first term in (5.24) is due to higher order dispersion of
the ionospheric plasma; the second term is due to the finite
bandwidth v2 of the pulse. The third term is due to random
scattering.In
casesofsevere
ionosphericscintillations, the
third term dominates the 1 / f : contribution to the excess time
delay. Fig. 29plotsthe l/f: and l/f: contributions to the
ranging errors caused by the excess delay in arrival time for
certain ionospheric conditions [ 19 11.
Another quantity of interest is the meansquare pulsewidth
defined by
r Z ( z )= M(2)(z)/M(O)(z)
- t(:(z).
J-
9, ( t ) w ( t ) 9, ( t ) d t = 0,
(5.30)
(5.31)
This approximationis based on thecriterion that theweighted
meansquare error of the approximation from the exactaverage
pulse defined by
(5.26)
mfn
lW
1;
( I ( t ) )4, ( t )d t
c, =
(5.33)
w ( t )4; d t
where
Substituting (5.29) into (5.33) and making use of the definition for the temporal moments,we obtain
354
(5.34)
1.6
l29
I .4
D. Numerical Experiments
Although it is common knowledge that temporal radio signals are usually degraded after propagating through the ionosphere under the scintillation environment, there are very few
precise data sets against which the theoretical predictions can
be checked. However, there are a number of simulation studies
carried out on computers which attempt t o check the theory,
t o enhance our physical understanding of the problem, or to
elucidate the phenomenon. As described in the previous two
sections, both amplitude and phase of a sinusoidal wave will
experience fluctuations when there exists scattering from
ionospheric irregularities. For propagation of temporal signals,
is how the amplitudeand phase vary
theimportantpoint
across the signal bandwidth. Let A (0)
be the amplitude function and $(a)be the phase function. Then it can be shown
that the time delay in the arrival of the pulse is related to the
slope of the phase function at the carrier frequency, the pulse
spreading is related to the curvature of the amplitude function
at the carrier frequency,and the skewness is related to the
third derivative of the phase function at the carrier frequency
[ 1961, [ 1971. For a particular realization of the turbulent
ionosphere corresponding t o an equatorial bubble, A ( w ) and
#(a)
may have the behavior shown in Fig. 30 which is obtained
numerically [ 1971. Substantial distortions in A and $ can be
seen across the frequency band above the 500-MHz carrier
frequency.Thesedistortions
in A and # are responsible for
theinstantaneous deviations intime delay,pulsewidth, and
skewness. As the-irregularities drift such as in a frozen flow,
the timedelay, the pulsewidth, and the skewness will fluctuate with time. The mean valuesof these quantities should
agree withthose derived earlier by using thetemporal moments((5.22)for
mean arrival time and (5.27)for meansquare pulsewidth). Such simulation studies
have been made
and good agreement with the theory has been found [ 1981.
For spread spectrumsystems
using adirectsequence
PN
scheme the received degraded signal plus noise is correlated
with an approximately delayed PN modulation waveform.
The correlator outputunder threescintillation
levels may
.6
.4
0.
q.
5 '-h
E
6.
I.
0.1
.2876
.3376
.3176
FREOUENCY
IN GI42
(b)
Fig. 30 The amplitude (a) and the phase (b) of the transfer function
aaoss the frequency band centered at a 500-MHz carrier frequency.
The ionosphere is simulated from the in-situ data corresponding to
an equatorial bubble. (After Tucker (1971 .)
355
356
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
C. H. Liu would like t o thank the Department of Electrical
Engineering, National Taiwan University, for their hospitality
and assistance during his stay in the Department where part of
the workwas carried out.
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C.
FELLOW, IEEE
Invited Paper
activity, solar sunspotcycle, and time of day is shown for each ofthese
three latitudinal sectors.
The effect of thevery high levels of solar flux during thepast sunspot
maximum of 1979-1981 is stressed During these years unusuallyhi@
levels of scintillation were noted near the peak of the Appleton quatorialanomaly (- +15 awayfrom themagneticequator) as wen as
over polar latitudes. New data on phase fluctuations are summarized
for the auroralzone with its sheet-like irregularity structure.
Manuscript received October 19, 1981;revised February 2, 1982.
The author was with the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, Hanscom
AFB, MA 01731. He is now withtheDepartment
of Astronomy,
Boston University, Boston, MA.
irre%uity developmentintheequatorialandauroralregionshave
I. INTRODUCTION
RADIO WAVE traversing the upper and lower atmosphere of the earth suffersadistortion
of phaseand
amplitude.
When it traverses drifting
ionospheric
irregularities, the radio wave experiencesfadingand
phase
fluctuation which varywidely with frequency, magnetic and