Thermospheric production of O(1S) by dissociative recombination of vibrationally excited O2+

Abstract

High spectral resolution line profiles at 5577 A of the night-time, F-region O(1S) emission measured by the Fabry-Perot Interferometer on board the Dynamics Explorer satellite are analyzed using a continuous O(1S) relaxation model. The model is an improvement over the previous model of Killeen and Hays in that energy loss via elastic collision is considered in addition to the single collision, excitation exchange thermalization process. The results show that the active channel for O(1S) production is capture into the 1[Sigma]u+ repulsive state of O2 and that the main contributor to its production is the dissociative recombination of O2+ ions in vibrational levels [nu] = 1 andz 2 in agreement with the quantal calculations of Guberman.