Oxygen Red Lines in the Airglow. II. Collisional Deactivation Effects.
Abstract
Deactivation rates for upper-atmosphere metastable atomic oxygen may be deduced from (1) time variations in auroral emissions; (2) emission heights much greater than 100 km for the nightglow red lines, despite the fact that excitation must occur at 100 km; (3) observations of the [0 1] red-to-green intensity ratio in aurorae. The auroral observations may be explained in two ways: (1) assuming deactivation rates proportional to air density and a red-to-green excitation ratio 32/S3 varying with altitude, as would be expected if discharge mechanisms are operative, or (2) assuming 52 /53 independent of altitude and deactivation rates not proportional to gas density, which may be the case if resonance collisions O(1D) + O3( ) O(3P) + O (' , `3 = 2) are important. In both cases the deduced deactivation rates are consistent with suppression of the airglow red-line emission at 100 km.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- January 1958
- DOI:
- 10.1086/146439
- Bibcode:
- 1958ApJ...127...67S