Raytracing of extreamely low frequency waves radiated from ionospheric artificial modulation at low latitude

Abstract

Powerful high-frequency radio waves modulated at extremely low frequency (ELF) and very low frequency (VLF) can efficiently modify the lower ionospheric current which can act as an equivalent ionospheri'c antenna for the generation of ELF/VLF wave and these signals can propagate into the magnetosphere and the investigation of the propagation properties is of significance for understanding of radiation belt energetic electrons precipitation. In this paper, based on the raytracing theory, the ray paths of ELF waves in the magnetosphere are obtained using numerical modeling and the properties are analyzed. The results shows that the ELF waves generated from the low latitude reflect between the southern and northern hemisphere and propagate to the farther place gradually. For the signals with different frequencies, the higher their frequencies, the shorter their propagation distances are, the lower their frequencies, the longer their propagtion distances are. In the process, ELF waves tend to reflect near a fixed region. The normal angel increases to 90° gradually and ray direction tends to propagate along the direction of geomagnetic field.