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Measurement of three‐dimensional plasma velocities at the Arecibo Observatory
Author(s) -
Hagfors T.,
Behnke R. A.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/rs009i002p00089
Subject(s) - physics , observatory , ionosphere , line of sight , optics , plasma , computational physics , geodesy , antenna (radio) , plasma diagnostics , incoherent scatter , resolution (logic) , astrophysics , geology , astronomy , computer science , telecommunications , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
An observation scheme is described in which it is possible to measure the three velocity components of plasma drift in the ionosphere by using a single monostatic incoherent scatter facility with a steerable antenna. The scheme involves a least‐mean‐squares fitting of the line‐of‐sight velocity observed in several different directions to what one would compute from a given set of three orthogonal velocity components. The method is applied to data gathered at the Arecibo Observatory and is shown to be capable of providing velocity information with rms errors of better than 10 m sec −1 for all three components with a time resolution of 20 min.