Whistler wave propagation through the ionosphere of Venus

TL;DR

This study models how hypothetical lightning-generated whistler waves would propagate through Venus's ionosphere, considering various ionospheric conditions and magnetic field effects, to understand their attenuation and potential detectability.

Contribution

It applies the Stanford Full Wave Method to simulate whistler wave propagation in Venus's ionosphere, highlighting the impact of electron density holes and magnetic field configurations.

Findings

Holes in electron density significantly affect wave propagation.

Magnetic field configuration influences wave attenuation.

Propagation varies with different ionospheric conditions.

Abstract

We investigate the attenuation of whistler waves generated by hypotetical venusian lightning occurring at the altitude of the cloud layer under different ionospheric conditions. We use the Stanford Full Wave Method (FWM) for stratified media of \cite{Lehtinen2008/JGR} to model wave propagation through the ionosphere of Venus. This method calculates the electromagnetic field created by an arbitrary source in a plane-stratified medium (i.e. uniform in the horizontal direction). We see that the existence of holes in electronic densities and the magnetic field configuration caused by solar wind play an important role in the propagation of electromagnetic waves through the venusian ionosphere.