Solitary wave characteristics on the fine structure of the mesospheric sporadic sodium layer

The so-called sporadic sodium layers (SSLs or NaS) are proposed to be strongly related to wave fluctuations. The solitary wave is a particular solution of the partial differential equation whose energy travels as a localized wave packet. A soliton, on the other hand, is a special type of solitary wa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shican Qiu, Mengxi Shi, Hamad Yousof, Willie Soon, Mingjiao Jia, Xianghui Xue, Tao Li, Peng Ju, Xiankang Dou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-09-01
Series:Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2023.1241663/full
Description
Summary:The so-called sporadic sodium layers (SSLs or NaS) are proposed to be strongly related to wave fluctuations. The solitary wave is a particular solution of the partial differential equation whose energy travels as a localized wave packet. A soliton, on the other hand, is a special type of solitary wave that exhibits a particle-like behavior with a strong stable form. For the first time, the solitary wave theory has been used in this research to study the fine structure of SSL/NaS. We performed soliton fitting processes on the observed data from the Andes Lidar Observatory and found out that 24/27 NaS events had exhibited similar features/characteristics to a soliton. Time series of the net anomaly of the NaS revealed the same variation process to the solution of a generalized five-order KdV equation. Our results, therefore, suggested that the NaS phenomenon would be a pertinent tracer for non-linear wave studies in the atmosphere.
ISSN:2296-987X