Power spectral characteristics of in-situ irregularities and topside GPS signal intensity at low latitudes using high-sample-rate swarm echo (e-POP) measurements

Abstract

Ionospheric density structures at low latitudes range in size from thousands of kilometers down to a few meters. Radio frequency (RF) signals, such as those from global navigation satellite systems, that propagate through irregularities suffer from rapid fluctuations in phase and intensity, known as scintillations. In this study, we use the high-sample-rate measurements of the Swarm Echo (CASSIOPE/e-POP) satellite's GPS Occultation (GAP-O) receiver taken after its antenna was re-oriented to vertical-pointing, simultaneously with e-POP Ion Mass Spectrometer surface current observations as a proxy for plasma density, to obtain the spectral characteristics of GPS signal intensity and in-situ irregularities at altitudes from 350 to 1,280 km. We show that the power spectra of both measurements can generally be characterized by a power law. In the case of density irregularities, the spectral index with the highest occurrence rate is around 1.7, which is consistent with previous studies. Also, all the power spectra of GPS signal intensity in this study show a single spectral index near 2. Moreover, roll-off frequencies estimated in this work range from 0.4 to 2.5 Hz, which is significantly higher than Fresnel frequencies calculated from ground GPS receivers at low latitudes (between 0.2 and 0.45 Hz). Part of this increase is due to the 8 km/s orbital velocity of Swarm Echo near perigee. Another key difference is that variations in the GPS signals in this study are dominated by the topside ionosphere, whereas GPS signals received from ground are affected mostly by the relatively dense F-region plasma in the 250-350 km altitudinal range.