IZMIRAN - Laboratory for Physics and modeling of the ionosphere

	Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation Russian Academy of Sciences ( founded in 1939 )
		Language [RU/EN]

Laboratory for Physics and modeling of the ionosphere

Head of laboratory
Doctor of Sciences Karpachev Alexander Trofimovich

The scientists
senior research scientist, Doctor of Science G.I. Korotova,
senior research scientist, candidate of phys.-math. sci. T.V. Gaivoronskaya,
senior research scientist, candidate of phys.-math. sci. L.Z. Biktash,
scientific associate, candidate of phys.-math. sci. N. Gasilov,
scientific associate, V.N. Kuleshova

The main subject of the laboratory is investigation of the large-scale structure of the topside ionosphere. The researches are based on the vast bank of data of the Intercosmos-19, Cosmos-900, and Cosmos-1809 satellites. The joint data bank of the three satellites covers all the longitudes, auroral, middle, and equatorial latitudes of the Northern and Southern hemispheres and altitudes from hmF2 to about 1000 km, both solar maximum and minimum. It is the only data bank in the world which allows to build up the three-dimensional distribution of the electron density in the topside ionosphere.

The software developed in the laboratory allows to carry out the whole cycle of the satellite information processing: the initial treatment of the data, coordinate relation, topside ionogram deduction, Ne(h) profiles calculation, global mapping the ionospheric parameters, ionospheric modeling and investigations of the mechanisms of the ionospheric parameters variations with local time, season, magnetic activity level, longitude, latitude, and altitude.

The specific aims of the investigations are the following:

modeling of the global distribution of the ionospheric parameters (hmF2, NmF2, Ne, Te) for quiet conditions for solar maximum and minimum;
study of the large-scale inhomogeneous structure of the ionosphere, including the night-side and day-side main ionospheric trough, the day-side Muldrew trough, the ring ionospheric trough etc.;
study of the variations of the equatorial anomaly characteristics;
analysis of formation mechanisms of different elements of the ionospheric global structure and variations of their characteristics;
investigation of the disturbed ionosphere dynamics as the response to a strong magnetospheric disturbance;
investigation of the magnetosphere-plasmasphere-ionosphere relations;
investigation of the asymmetry between the Northern and Southern hemispheres at the ionospheric level and analysis of its causes.