Department of Radioastronomy

Head of department - associate Professor Akchurin Adel Dzhavidovich

   The main direction of the department is the propagation of radio waves in the ionosphere/atmosphere, and radio astronomy. In recent times, mainly the first subject is dominated. The area of most attention is the ionosphere as a representative of the near space. As the boundary zone between the atmosphere and the near space, the ionosphere feels the impact from below (from the lower atmosphere) and above (the ionizing radiation of the sun, as well as particles and fields of magnetosphere and plasmasphere). This allows us to study not only endoionospheric processes, but also to use the ionosphere as a sensor that is sensitive to the effects from both the Earth and from the space. Radioastronomy department was founded in 1962. 

The department trains specialists in 4 spheres of radiophysics:

• Methods and equipments for the measurement and analysis of physical phenomena;
• Modern microprocessors and computers in research and production;
• Electromagnetic wave transmission in atmosphere, ionosphere and random medium;
• Radiophysics in ecology.

The ionosphere as an object of observation is naturally an interesting and multi-faceted subject and none of laboratory is able to cover it's study on all sides. The inevitable specialization of each research group leads to focusing on their specific topics. The main such topics in the world are planetary and regional (equatorial, auroral and midlatitude) study. Due to its location, our research associated with mid-latitude ionosphere. Of course, the midlatitude ionosphere is not so clearly responds to the cosmic, magnetospheric influence how the auroral ionosphere, but there is enough mysteries and unexplored phenomena. So in a quiet midlatitude ionosphere constantly present the so-called traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) with typical horizontal dimensions of 50-500 km which are considered as medium-scale (MS). The existence of such MSTIDs until now still has no generally accepted explanation, whereby they is the object of attention increased in recent years due to the expanded possibilities of radar technology and the growth of the number of satellite signal receivers. Special scientific measurement companies are organized to study MSTIDs, for example, it is SpICE (Spatial Ionospheric Correlation Experiment).

Openlab (project) "Ionosphere monitoring" works in the department.

Ionospheric monitoring now impossible without satellite technology. This trend begun together the previous head of the department Teptin G.M. and prof. Hutorova O.G. actively continues the younger generation - Kalinnikov V.V., Hutorov V.E. The team has a set of equipment consisting of the own network very closely spaced (from 100 m to 40 km) GPS-GLONASS and weather stations, which allows a detailed study of the spatial structure of tropospheric processes and do theoretical developments in the field of satellite monitoring of the atmosphere research. Plans to recruit leading Chinese specialists on the airglow registration J. Xu and W. Yuan (h-index: 16 and 8). [China, Beijing, Center for Space Science and Applied Research Chinese Academy of Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Space Weather]. One of directions of their activity is to record the night's red oxygen emission at 630.0 nm and the hydroxyl emission in the near infrared region of the spectrum. These works are promising, as they allow the vertical structure of the electron density of the ionosounde to combine with extensive spatial structure of the all-sky imager.

Accumulated series of continuous every seconds observations since 2008 allow us to develop empirical models of mesoscale processes. Currently, the network is used to estimate parameters of the atmosphere (the integral moisture content) and are a promising tool for atmospheric studying. Such studies are relevant because they allow us not only to create a picture of humidity fields for  meteorological forecasts, but also to develop methods to improve the accuracy of satellite positioning systems and find a causal link between the lower atmosphere and ionosphere.