Advancements in Modeling and Analysis of Artificial Periodic Inhomogeneities in the Ionosphere

The Artificial Periodic Inhomogeneities (API) are periodical structures in plasma density created by heating the different layers of the ionosphere using powerful HF waves emitted from ground-based radio frequency transmitter facilities. Backscatter signals from these structures provide valuable information about the medium from which they originated and serve to study a broad range of ionospheric phenomena. In this work, we extend a one-dimensional fluid model (Hysell et al., 2023) that simulates the formation of API structures in the E region to include mechanisms that dominate API formation at other altitudes. First, we introduce a simplified chemical model for the D region that incorporates temperature-dependent attachment and detachment rates. This dependence allows us to replicate the formation of irregularities within this region, as reported in the literature. Second, we incorporate the ponderomotive force into the simulation, which has been suggested as the primary mechanism driving irregularity formation in the F region. In addition, the decay times of the simulated irregularities formed in the E region have been compared to the analytical values of the ambipolar and multipolar diffusion rates. Finally, we present a detailed description of the features of the newly formed API structures.