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First light from a kilometer‐baseline Scintillation Auroral GPS Array
Author(s) -
DattaBarua S.,
Su Y.,
Deshpande K.,
Miladinovich D.,
Bust G. S.,
Hampton D.,
Crowley G.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2015gl063556
Subject(s) - scintillation , interplanetary scintillation , global positioning system , remote sensing , phase (matter) , ionosphere , physics , optics , geology , geodesy , astronomy , telecommunications , computer science , detector , solar wind , coronal mass ejection , quantum mechanics , magnetic field
We introduce and analyze the first data from an array of closely spaced Global Positioning System (GPS) scintillation receivers established in the auroral zone in late 2013 to measure spatial and temporal variations in L band signals at 100–1000 m and subsecond scales. The seven receivers of the Scintillation Auroral GPS Array (SAGA) are sited at Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska. The receivers produce 100 s scintillation indices and 100 Hz carrier phase and raw in‐phase and quadrature‐phase samples. SAGA is the largest existing array with baseline lengths of the ionospheric diffractive Fresnel scale at L band. With an initial array of five receivers, we identify a period of simultaneous amplitude and phase scintillation. We compare SAGA power and phase data with collocated 630.0 nm all‐sky images of an auroral arc and incoherent scatter radar electron precipitation measurements, to illustrate how SAGA can be used in multi‐instrument observations for subkilometer‐scale studies.