Mesospheric Radiowave Propagation In The 60 GHz Band Affected By Zeeman-Split Oxygen Lines

A model was developed to analyze anisotropic propagation of plane, polarized radiowaves in the mesosphere as influenced by the geomagnetic Zeeman effect displayed by 02 spectral lines positioned in the 60 GHz band. To provide an example here, the 5+ line, centered at the frequency fo = 59.59058 GHz, has been chosen and two cases are discussed: from a location known by latitude and longitude, a radiowave (a) propagates north in an altitude of 75 km at the frequency fo + 1 MHz covering a distance of up to 1000 km; and (b) enters the atmosphere at 100 km altitude, heads in either N, E, S, or W directions, descends to the 75 km level, and then exits again. In the first case, attenuation and polarization state are followed along the path; in the second case, total path attenuations as a function of frequency deviation (f0±MHz), initial polarization, and direction are given.