Collaborative Proposal: A High-Latitude Conjugate Area Array Experiment to Investigate Solar Wind - Magnetosphere - Ionosphere Coupling

This proposal is directed toward an investigation of the coupling phenomena between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere, particularly on the day side of the Earth and observed simultaneously at high latitudes in both northern and southern hemispheres. Through past NSF support, several magnetometers have been deployed in Antarctica, Greenland, and Svalbard, while new collaborations have been developed with the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) to further increase coverage through data sharing. This project will expand the existing Virginia Tech-PRIC partnership to include New Jersey Institute of Technology, University of New Hampshire, and the Technical University of Denmark and (1) construct two new stations to be deployed by PRIC along a chain from Zhongshan station to Dome A to complete a conjugate area array, (2) integrate data from all stations into a common format, and (3) address two focused science questions. Both instrument deployment and data processing efforts are motivated by a large number of solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere (SWMI) coupling science questions; this project will address two questions pertaining to Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) waves: (1) What is the global ULF response to Hot Flow Anomalies (HFA) and how is it affected by asymmetries in the SWMI system? (2) How do dawn-dusk and north-south asymmetries in the coupled SWMI system affect global ULF wave properties during periods with large, steady east-west Interplanetary Magnetic field (IMF By)? This proposal requires fieldwork in the Antarctic, but all fieldwork will be conducted by PRIC.