Study on the Method of Extracting Plasma Lines Based on Sanya Incoherent Scatter Radar

The plasma lines observed by Sanya incoherent scatter radar (SYISR) are dependent on the enhancement of Langmuir waves due to superthermal photoelectrons generated by solar EUV radiation. The plasma line power spectrum can be obtained using long-pulse and alternating-code transmission signals during the period from sunrise to noon almost every day. For the power spectrum of the long pulse, the CLEAN algorithm that has been applied in this field is used to verify the feasibility of this method for SYISR in only a few cases. However, it is difficult to deal with alternating code with such a low SNR using the general deconvolution method. The irreversible-migration filtering (IMF) method has been developed to separate signal noise from the measurements of the alternating code. Some experimental results from the SYISR measurements validate the excellent performance of the IMF method for alternating code. Additionally, an example observation of the electron density with a high time and range resolution is derived. The results show that plasma line detection can be a powerful new observational capability for SYISR as an ionospheric experimental mode for ionospheric calibration, when possible, which can be simultaneously measured with the ion line for constant radar calibration in the standard fitting of the ion line.

Automated summary

The plasma lines observed by SYISR depend on the enhancement of Langmuir waves caused by solar EUV radiation. The power spectrum of the plasma line can be obtained using long-pulse and alternating-code transmission signals. The IMF method has been developed to separate signal noise in the measurements of the alternating code, showing excellent performance. Combined with the ion line, plasma line detection can be a powerful new observational capability for SYISR.