Probing Ionospheric Structures using the LOFAR radio telescope

Understand

LOFAR is the LOw Frequency Radio interferometer ARray located at mid-latitude ($52^{\circ} 53'N$).

• Here, we present results on ionospheric structures derived from 29 LOFAR nighttime observations during the winters of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014.
• We show that LOFAR is able to determine differential ionospheric TEC values with an accuracy better than 1 mTECU over distances ranging between 1 and 100 km.
• For all observations the power law behavior of the phase structure function is confirmed over a long range of baseline lengths, between $1$ and $80$ km, with a slope that is in general larger than the $5/3$ expected for pure Kolmogorov turbulence.