Charged particle reactions involving oxygen and nitrogen in the E- and F-regions

Author / Creator

Swider, William

Available as

Online

Summary

Two-body ionospheric reactions involving oxygen and/or nitrogen are briefly reviewed with special emphasis on the temperature dependencies of these reactions and reactions involving excited ions. T...

Two-body ionospheric reactions involving oxygen and/or nitrogen are briefly reviewed with special emphasis on the temperature dependencies of these reactions and reactions involving excited ions. The temperature dependence of most reactions are fairly well known except for processes which can occur over a wide range of thermospheric temperatures, particularly O and/or O(+) reactions and dissociative recombination processes. Disagreements between laboratory and aeronomically deduced loss processes for O(+) ions are discussed. The absence of laboratory measurements of excited ion reactions at typical E- and F-region temperatures hinders twilight and auroral studies. The lack of knowledge concerning the state of excitation of reaction products impairs airglow and chemical aeronomy studies. The reaction between O(2(+) and NO may be an important source of electronically excited O2 molecules in auroras.

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