Michael J. Nicolls

Diurnal variability of the gyro resonance line observed with the Arecibo incoherent scatter radar at E- and F1-region altitudes

[1]xa0In this paper, we report on observations of the diurnal variation of a resonance line that occurs near the gyro frequency as seen with the incoherent scatter radar (ISR) at the Arecibo Observatory. This gyro resonance line has rarely been observed in ISR data, but recent results, exemplified by the observations of Bhatt et al. (2006), have implied that the gyro line is a common ionospheric feature. The observations presented here were made with much better altitude resolution in comparison with previous results and represent full 24 hour coverage for several days. The data indicate that an increase in the gyro line intensity near sunrise and sunset is an everyday occurrence. As the increase in intensity is occurring at sunset, the gyro line frequency drops from the expected frequency to one near zero frequency. As the increase in intensity is occurring at sunrise, the gyro line frequency increases from near zero frequency to one near the expected gyro line frequency. This behavior of the gyro line frequency and intensity has not been observed before. We explain these results using normal Maxwellian incoherent scatter theory together with the diurnal variation of the density in the E and F1 regions. These results may explain previous observations of the gyro line made at Arecibo and suggest avenues of future research for studying this exciting feature of the incoherent scatter spectrum.