Aeronomical determination of the efficiency of O 1D) production by dissociative recombination of O 2+

Simultaneous measurements of the 6300 Å airglow intensity, the electron density profile, and F-region ion temperatures and vertical ion velocities taken at the Arecibo Observatory in March 1971 are utilized in the height integrated continuity equation to extract the number of photons'of 6300 Å emitted per recombination. After accounting for quenching of O( ¹D) and the electrons lost via NO ⁺ recombination, the efficiency of O( ¹D) production by the dissociative recombination of O ₂⁺ is determined to be 0.6 ± 0.2 including cascading from the O( ¹S) state. The uncertainty includes both random measurement errors and estimates of possible systematic errors.