A New Approach to the Modeling of Anisotropic Media with the Transmission Line Matrix Method

A reformulation of the Transmission Line Matrix (TLM) method is presented to model non-dispersive anisotropic media. Two TLM-based solutions to solve this problem can already be found in the literature, each one with an interesting feature. One can be considered a more conceptual approach, close to the TLM fundamentals, which identifies each TLM in Maxwell's equations with a specific line. But this simplicity is achieved at the expense of an increase in the memory storage requirements of a general situation. The second existing solution is a more powerful and general formulation that avoids this increase in memory storage. However, it is based on signal processing techniques and considerably deviates from the original TLM method, which may complicate its dissemination in the scientific community. The reformulation presented in this work exploits the benefits of both methods. On the one hand, it maintains the direct and conceptual approach of the original TLM, which may help to better understand it, allowing for its future use and improvement by other authors. On the other hand, the proposal includes an optimized treatment of the signals stored at the stub lines in order to limit the requirement of memory storage to only one accumulative term per field component, as in the original TLM versions used for isotropic media. The good behavior of the proposed algorithm when applied to anisotropic media is shown by its application to different situations involving diagonal and off-diagonal tensor properties

Design & Optimization of Large Cylindrical Radomes with Subcell and Non-Orthogonal FDTD Meshes Combined with Genetic Algorithms

The word radome is a contraction of radar and dome. The function of radomes is to protect antennas from atmospheric agents. Radomes are closed structures that protect the antennas from environmental factors such as wind, rain, ice, sand, and ultraviolet rays, among others. The radomes are passive structures that introduce return losses, and whose proper design would relax the requirement of complex front-end elements such as amplifiers. The radome consists mostly in a thin dielectric curved shape cover and sometimes needs to be tuned using metal inserts to cancel the capacitive performance of the dielectric. Radomes are in the near field region of the antennas and a full wave analysis of the antenna with the radome is the best approach to analyze its performance. A major numerical problem is the full wave modeling of a large radome-antenna-array system, as optimization of the radome parameters minimize return losses. In the present work, the finite difference time domain (FDTD) combined with a genetic algorithm is used to find the optimal radome for a large radome-antenna-array system. FDTD uses general curvilinear coordinates and sub-cell features as a thin dielectric slab approach and a thin wire approach. Both approximations are generally required if a problem of practical electrical size is to be solved using a manageable number of cells and time steps in FDTD inside a repetitive optimization loop. These approaches are used in the full wave analysis of a large array of crossed dipoles covered with a thin and cylindrical dielectric radome. The radome dielectric has a thickness of ~λ/10 at its central operating frequency. To reduce return loss a thin helical wire is introduced in the radome, whose diameter is ~0.0017λ and the spacing between each turn is ~0.3λ. The genetic algorithm was implemented to find the best parameters to minimize return losses. The inclusion of a helical wire reduces return losses by ~10 dB, however some minor changes of radiation pattern could distort the performance of the whole radome-array-antenna system. A further analysis shows that desired specifications of the system are preserved

A 3D TLM code for the study of the ELF electromagnetic wave propagation in the Earth's atmosphere

The interest in the study of electromagnetic propagation through planetary atmospheres is briefly discussed. Special attention is devoted to extremely-low-frequency fields in the Earth's atmosphere for its global nature and possible applications to climate monitoring studies among others. In the Earth's case, the system can be considered as a spherical electromagnetic shell resonator in which two concentric and large conducting spheres with a radius around 6300 km are separated by a very small distance of around 100 km, the atmosphere height. A numerical solution using the Transmission Line Method is proposed. The classical spherical-coordinate description is easy to use, however, the important difference in the dimensions along the three coordinate directions causes high numerical dispersion in the results. A Cartesian scheme with equal node size for all directions is used to reduce this undesired dispersion. A pre-processing stage is the key point introduced to lessen the resulting high demand of memory and time calculation and make the solution feasible. A parallelized Fortran code together with pre- and post-processing Python programs to ease the user interface are provided with this work. Details on the Fortran code and the Python modules are included both in the paper and the source codes to allow the use and modifications by other researchers interested in electromagnetic propagation through planetary atmospheres. The program allows calculation of the time evolution of the electromagnetic field at any point in the atmosphere. It includes the possibility of considering multiple time-dependent sources and different homogeneous and inhomogeneous conductivity profiles to model different situations. Profiles to study day-night asymmetries or locally perturbed profiles which have been attributed to earthquakes in the literature are implemented, for instance.MCIN/AEI 10.13039/501100011033 (grant PID 2020-112805 GA-I00)Grant PID 2020-112805 GA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 50110001103

Schumann resonance data processing programs and four-year measurements from Sierra Nevada ELF station

In this work, we present to the scientific community the measurements taken during four years, from March 2013 to February 2017 inclusive, by the Extremely Low Frequency Sierra Nevada station, Spain, together with the data processing programs developed in Python (version 3.8) to extract the Schumann resonance (SR) parameters (i.e., amplitudes, resonant frequencies, resonance widths) in 10 min time periods from these records. The measure- ments correspond to the voltage induced by the atmospheric electromagnetic field at the north-south and east- west oriented magnetometers of the station. The process comprises four stages. The spectrum, calibrated in the frequency band ranging from 6 Hz to 25 Hz, is obtained at the first stage using the Welch method with Hann windows. The second step eliminates the anthropogenic noise generated by different undesired sources. Next, a non-linear fit of the measured spectrum combining Lorentzian functions together with a linear term is carried out in order to identify the presence of SRs and quantitatively characterize them. This third step is carried out using the Python package Lmfit, which implements the Levenberg-Marquad algorithm. Finally, a compact and easy-to- read output is generated at the fourth stage, using the power of the Numpy arrays and the npz format. In addition, four Jupyter notebooks with the description of the code and the possibility of their use in interactive mode are presented as supplementary material with this paper

Ion distribution functions in magnetotail reconnection: global hybrid-Vlasov simulation results

We present results of noon-midnight meridional plane global hybrid-Vlasov simulations of the magnetotail ion dynamics under a steady southward interplanetary magnetic field using the Vlasiator model. The simulation results show magnetotail reconnection and formation of earthward and tailward fast plasma outflows. The hybrid-Vlasov approach allows us to study ion velocity distribution functions (VDFs) that are self-consistently formed during the magnetotail evolution. We examine the VDFs collected by virtual detectors placed along the equatorial magnetotail within earthward and tailward outflows and around the quasi-steady X line formed in the magnetotail at X approximate to -14 RE. This allows us to follow the evolution of VDFs during earthward and tailward motion of reconnected flux tubes as well as study signatures of unmagnetized ion motion in the weak magnetic field near the X line. The VDFs indicate actions of Fermi-type and betatron acceleration mechanisms, ion acceleration by the reconnection electric field, and Speiser-type motion of ions near the X line. The simulated VDFs are compared and show good agreement with VDFs observed in the magnetotail by the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) and Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of Moon's Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS) spacecraft. We find that the VDFs become more gyrotropic but retain transverse anisotropy and counterstreaming ion beams when being convected earthward. The presented global hybrid-Vlasov simulation results are valuable for understanding physical processes of ion acceleration during magnetotail reconnection, interpretation of in situ observations, and for future mission development by setting requirements on pitch angle and energy resolution of upcoming instruments

Cluster and MMS simultaneous observations of magnetosheath high speed jets and their impact on the magnetopause

When the supersonic solar wind encounters the Earth's magnetosphere a shock, called bow shock, is formed and the plasma is decelerated and thermalized in the magnetosheath downstream from the shock. Sometimes, however, due to discontinuities in the solar wind, bow shock ripples or ionized dust clouds carried by the solar wind, high speed jets (HSJs) are observed in the magnetosheath. These HSJs have typically a Vx component larger than 200 km s−1 and their dynamic pressure can be a few times the solar wind dynamic pressure. They are typically observed downstream from the quasi-parallel bow shock and have a typical size around one Earth radius (RE) in XGSE. We use a conjunction of Cluster and MMS, crossing simultaneously the magnetopause, to study the characteristics of these HSJs and their impact on the magnetopause. Over 1 h 15 min interval in the magnetosheath, Cluster observed 21 HSJs. During the same period, MMS observed 12 HSJs and entered the magnetosphere several times. A jet was observed simultaneously by both MMS and Cluster and it is very likely that they were two distinct HSJs. This shows that HSJs are not localized into small regions but could span a region larger than 10 RE, especially when the quasi-parallel shock is covering the entire dayside magnetosphere under radial IMF. During this period, two and six magnetopause crossings were observed, respectively, on Cluster and MMS with a significant angle between the observation and the expected normal deduced from models. The angles observed range between from 11° up to 114°. One inbound magnetopause crossing observed by Cluster (magnetopause moving out at 142 km s−1) was observed simultaneous to an outbound magnetopause crossing observed by MMS (magnetopause moving in at −83 km s−1), showing that the magnetopause can have multiple local indentation places, most likely independent from each other. Under the continuous impacts of HSJs, the magnetopause is deformed significantly and can even move in opposite directions at different places. It can therefore not be considered as a smooth surface anymore but more as surface full of local indents. Four dust impacts were observed on MMS, although not at the time when HSJs are observed, showing that dust clouds would have been present during the observations. No dust cloud in the form of Interplanetary Field Enhancements was however observed in the solar wind which may exclude large clouds of dust as a cause of HSJs. Radial IMF and Alfvén Mach number above 10 would fulfill the criteria for the creation of bow shock ripples and the subsequent crossing of HSJs in the magnetosheath.publishedVersio

Solar Cycle-Modulated Deformation of the Earth–Ionosphere Cavity

The Earth–ionosphere cavity resonator is occupied primarily by the electromagnetic radiation of lightning below 100 Hz. The phenomenon is known as Schumann resonances (SR). SR intensity is an excellent indicator of lightning activity and its distribution on global scales. However, long-term measurements from high latitude SR stations revealed a pronounced in-phase solar cycle modulation of SR intensity seemingly contradicting optical observations of lightning from satellite, which do not show any significant solar cycle variation in the intensity and spatial distribution of lightning activity on the global scale. The solar cycle-modulated local deformation of the Earth–ionosphere cavity by the ionization of energetic electron precipitation (EEP) has been suggested as a possible phenomenon that may account for the observed long-term modulation of SR intensity. Precipitating electrons in the energy range of 1–300 keV can affect the Earth–ionosphere cavity resonator in the altitude range of about 70–110 km and modify the SR intensities. However, until now there was no direct evidence documented in the literature supporting this suggestion. In this paper we present long-term SR intensity records from eight stations, each equipped with a pair of induction coil magnetometers: five high latitude (|lat| \u3e 60°), two mid-high latitude (50° \u3c |lat| \u3c 60°) and one low latitude (|lat| \u3c 30°). These long-term, ground-based SR intensity records are compared on the annual and interannual timescales with the fluxes of precipitating 30–300 keV medium energy electrons provided by the POES NOAA-15 satellite and on the daily timescale with electron precipitation events identified using a SuperDARN radar in Antarctica. The long-term variation of the Earth–ionosphere waveguide’s effective height, as inferred from its cutoff frequency, is independently analyzed based on spectra recorded by the DEMETER satellite. It is shown that to account for all our observations one needs to consider both the effect of solar X-rays and EEP which modify the quality factor of the cavity and deform it dominantly over low- and high latitudes, respectively. Our results suggest that SR measurements should be considered as an alternative tool for collecting information about and thus monitoring changes in the ionization state of the lower ionosphere associated with EEP

Kinetic Interaction of Cold and Hot Protons With an Oblique EMIC Wave Near the Dayside Reconnecting Magnetopause

We report observations of the ion dynamics inside an Alfvén branch wave that propagates near the reconnecting dayside magnetopause. The measured frequency, wave normal angle and polarization are consistent with the predictions of a dispersion solver. The magnetospheric plasma contains hot protons (keV), cold protons (eV), plus some heavy ions. While the cold protons follow the magnetic field fluctuations and remain frozen-in, the hot protons are at the limit of magnetization. The cold protons exchange energy back and forth, adiabatically, with the wave fields. The cold proton velocity fluctuations contribute to balance the Hall term fluctuations in Ohm's law, and the wave E field has small ellipticity and right-handed polarization. The dispersion solver indicates that increasing the cold proton density facilitates propagation and amplification of these waves at oblique angles, as for the observed wave

Numerical simulation and experimental study of the natural electromagnetic waves in the ELF and VLF bands

Tesis Univ. Granada. Departamento de Física Aplicada. Leída el 30 de mayo de 201

Signatures of Cold Ions in a Kinetic Simulation of the Reconnecting Magnetopause

International audienceAbstract At the Earth's magnetopause, a low-energy ion population of ionospheric origin is commonly observed at the magnetospheric side. In this work we use a 2-D fully kinetic simulation to identify several original signatures related to the dynamics of cold ions involved in magnetic reconnection at the asymmetric dayside magnetopause. We identify several original signatures of the cold ions dynamics driven by the development of magnetic reconnection at the asymmetric dayside magnetopause. We find that cold ions tend to rarefy in the diffusion region, while their density is enhanced as a result of compression along magnetospheric separatrices. We also observe the formation of crescent-shaped cold ion distribution functions along the separatrices in the near-exhaust region, and we present an analytical model to explain this signature. Finally, we give evidence of a localized parallel heating of cold ions. These signatures should be detected with the magnetospheric multiscale mission high-resolution observations