DLITE—An inexpensive, deployable interferometer for solar radio burst observations

Solar radio bursts (SRBs) are brief periods of enhanced radio emission from the Sun which contain information concerning the plasma where the emission originates; consequently, SRBs can provide critical information concerning space weather events such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A new network of four-element interferometers is being developed and used to monitor SRBs. These interferometers, called the Deployable Low-band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (DLITE) arrays, operate in a 30-40 MHz band and were originally designed to probe the Earth’s ionosphere using high resolution measurements (1.024-s temporal resolution, 16.276-kHz frequency resolution). The DLITE network has recently been demonstrated to be  a powerful tool for detailed observations of SRBs at these frequencies. We have used DLITE to detect long-duration Type II and Type IV SRBs. Each DLITE array provides a higher sensitivity (e.g. >10 dB) compared to single-receiver stations using the same antenna. We demonstrate DLITE's enhanced functionality by examining SRBs associated with a CME on May 11, 2022. The high resolution SRB data that DLITE provides can complement ground-based networks like e-Callisto or space-based observations, e.g., from Wind/WAVES. Future improvements could be made to DLITE arrays by utilizing the 20-80 MHz band and millisecond time-resolution possible by the antennas. This would expand DLITE’s detection ability to shorter Type I and Type III SRBs and improve its ability to track long-duration bursts.