High-precision Measurements of Ionospheric TEC Gradients with the Very Large Array VHF System

Abstract

We have used a relatively long, contiguous VHF observation of a bright cosmic radio source (Cygnus A) with the Very Large Array (VLA) to demonstrate the capability of this instrument to study the ionosphere. This interferometer, and others like it, can observe ionospheric total electron content (TEC) fluctuations on a much wider range of scales than is possible with many other instruments. We have shown that with a bright source, the VLA can measure differential TEC values between pairs of antennas (delta-TEC) with an precision of 0.0003 TECU. Here, we detail the data reduction and processing techniques used to achieve this level of precision. In addition, we demonstrate techniques for exploiting these high-precision delta-TEC measurements to compute the TEC gradient observed by the array as well as small-scale fluctuations within the TEC gradient surface. A companion paper details specialized spectral analysis techniques used to characterize the properties of wave-like fluctuations within this data.

accepted for publication in Radio Science

References in corpus (4)

• The VLA Low-frequency Sky Survey
• Probing Fine-Scale Ionospheric Structure with the Very Large Array Radio Telescope
• Cygnus A: A Long Wavelength Resolution of the Hot Spots
• A New Technique for Spectral Analysis of Ionospheric TEC Fluctuations Observed with the Very Large Array VHF System: From QP Echoes to MSTIDs

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Power spectrum analysis of ionospheric fluctuations with the Murchison Widefield Array
• A New Technique for Spectral Analysis of Ionospheric TEC Fluctuations Observed with the Very Large Array VHF System: From QP Echoes to MSTIDs
• Very Large Array Observations of Disturbed Ion Flow from the Plasmasphere to the Nighttime Ionosphere
• Climatology of Mid-latitude Ionospheric Disturbances from the Very Large Array Low-frequency Sky Survey
• Study of the equatorial ionosphere using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) at sub-GHz frequencies
• Exploring Earth's Ionosphere and its effect on low radio frequency observation with the uGMRT and the SKA
• Advanced spectral analysis of ionospheric waves observed with sparse arrays
• Spectral Analysis of ionospheric density variations measured with the large radio telescope in the Low-Latitude region
• Ionospheric observations of Underground Nuclear Explosions (UNE) using GPS and the Very Large Array
• Probing Equatorial Ionospheric TEC at Sub-GHz Frequencies with Wide-Band (B4) uGMRT Interferometric Data