Investigating the Threshold and Strength of Emission Lines Generated by Magnetized Stimulated Brillouin Scatter (MSBS) using HAARP facilities

The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska provides effective radiated powers in the megawatt range that have allowed researchers to study many non-linear effects of wave-plasma interactions. Stimulated Electromagnetic Emission (SEE) is of interest to the ionospheric community for its diagnostic purposes. In recent HAARP heating experiments, it has been shown that during the Magnetized Stimulated Brillouin Scattering MSBS instability, the pumped electromagnetic wave may decay into an electromagnetic wave and a low frequency electrostatic wave (either ion acoustic IA wave or electrostatic ion cyclotron EIC wave). According to the matching conditions, the O-mode electromagnetic wave can excite either an ion-acoustic wave with a frequency less than the ion cyclotron frequency that propagates along the magnetic field or an electrostatic ion cyclotron (EIC) wave with frequency just above the ion cyclotron frequency that propagates at an angle with respect to the magnetic field. Using Stimulated Electromagnetic Emission (SEE) spectral features, side bands which extend above and below the pump frequency can yield significant diagnostics for the modified ionosphere. It has been shown that the IA wave frequency offsets can be used to measure electron temperature in the heated ionosphere and EIC wave offsets can be used as a sensitive method to determine the ion species by measuring ion mass using the ion gyro-frequency offset. In this presentation the results of SEE experiment at 2010 PARS summer school and 2011 SSRC will be discussed. The experiment was performed at the 3rd electron gyro harmonic with frequency sweeping, power stepping and beam angle variation. Three diagnostics were implemented to study the SEE. There were 1) A 4 channel spectrum analyzer SEE receiver, 2) the University of Alaska SuperDARN radar facility and, 3) the MUIR incoherent scatter radar. The experimental results aimed to show the threshold for transmitter power to excite IA wave propagating along the magnetic field line as well as for EIC wave while transmitter antenna beam pointed at an angle with respect to magnetic field. A full wave solution has been developed to estimate the amplitude of the electric field at interaction altitude. This electric field amplitude will be used to estimate the growth rate of IA and EIC waves using the solution of the nonlinear dispersion relation. The estimated growth rate using the theoretical model will be used to make quantitative comparisons with the threshold of SBS lines in the experiment.