Considerations for modifying collective Thomson scattering forward models to accommodate small scale orbital debris

The technique of collective Thomson scatter (also known as incoherent scatter) has been a mainstay of the ionospheric remote sensing community for several decades, as it uniquely provides full altitude profiles of the ionospheric state, including plasma temperatures and composition. The forward model necessary to analyze observed spectra from large aperture, high power radar systems was developed beginning in the late 1950s, with the ability to sample altitude dependent changes stemming from the very weak nature of the scatter which well satisfies the Born approximation. A number of parallel approaches have been developed for the forward model, including a Nyquist fluctuation-dissipation theorem based framework (e.g. [1]), statistical dressed particle approaches [2], and equivalent parallel circuit models [3] in which the source currents are generated by thermal motions of the electrons and ions in the plasma and complex impedances are presented by each species which must obey electrostatic forcing from a common electric field.