EPP

In June 2018, for the first time, the SURA heating facility in Russia , together with the in-orbit China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES), carried out a series of experiments in emitting high frequency (HF) O-mode radio waves to disturb the ionosphere. This paper reports data from those experiments, collected onboard CSES, including electric field, in-situ plasma parameters, and energetic particle flux. Five cases are analyzed, two cases in local daytime and three in local nighttime. We find that the pumping wave frequencies f₀ in local daytime were close to the critical frequency of the F₂ layer f_oF₂, but no pumping waves were detected by the electric field detector (EFD) on CSES even when the emitted power reached 90 MW, and no obvious plasma disturbances were observed from CSES in those two daytime cases. But on June 16, there existed a spread F phenomena when f₀ was lower than f_oF₂ at that local daytime period. During the three cases in local nighttime, the pumping waves were clearly distinguished in the HF-band electric field at the emitted frequency with the emitted power only 30 MW; the power spectrum density of the electric field was larger by an order of magnitude than the normal background, with the propagating radius exceeding 200 km. Due to the small f_oF₂ over SURA in June at that local nighttime period,f₀ in these three cases were significantly higher than f_oF₂, all belonging to under-dense heating conditions. As for the plasma parameters, only an increase of about 100 K in ion temperature was observed on June 12; in the other two cases (with one orbit without plasma data on June 17), no obvious plasma disturbances were found. This first joint SURA-CSES experiment illustrates that the present orbit of CSES can cross quite close to the SURA facility, which can insure an effective heating time from SURA so that CSES can observe the perturbations at the topside ionosphere excited by SURA in the near region. The detection of plasma disturbances on June 12 with under-dense heating mode in local nighttime provides evidence for likely success of future related experiments between CSES and SURA, or with other HF facilities.

High energy particles are the main target of satellite space exploration; particle storm events are closely related to solar activity, cosmic ray distribution, and magnetic storms. The commonly seen energetic particle (electron) precipitation anomalies include mainly the inner and outer Van Allen radiation belts, the South Atlantic Anomaly, and the anomalous stripes excited by artificial electromagnetic waves. The China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES), launched in February of 2018, provides a platform for studying ionospheric particle disturbances. This paper reports the first studies of electron precipitation phenomenon based on high energy particle data from the CSES. We find that the global distribution of electron fluxes in the low energy band (0.1–3 MeV) can relatively well reflect the anomalous precipitation belt, which is consistent with results based on the DEMETER satellite, indicating that the quality of the low-energy band payload of the CSES is good. In addition, this paper makes an in-depth study of the electron precipitation belt excited by the NWC artificial VLF electromagnetic transmitter located in Australia, which appears as a typical wisp structure on the energy spectrum. The magnetic shell parameter L corresponding to the precipitation belt ranges from 1.44 to 1.74, which is close to the L value (~1.45) of the NWC transmitter; the energy of the precipitation electrons is between 100 keV and 361.57 keV, among which the precipitation of 213.73 keV electrons is most conspicuous.