The ionospheric oxygen Green airglow: Electron temperature dependence and aeronomical implications

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Abstract
The laboratory measurement of processes involved in terrestrial airglows is essential in developing diagnostic tools of the dynamics and photochemistry of the upper atmosphere. Dissociative electron recombination of O2+ in the ionospheric F‐region is expected to produce both O(¹D) and O(¹S) which are the sources of the 630.0 nm red airglow and the 557.7 nm green airglow lines, respectively. We present both theoretical and experimental evidence, the latter from a heavy ion storage ring technique, that the O(¹S) quantum yield from O2+(υ = 0) is a strong function of the electron temperature due to a molecular resonance phenomenon. At present the O2+(υ = 0) theoretical and laboratory recombination data cannot explain rocket observations of the ionospheric green and red airglows [Takahashi et al. 1990; Sobral et al. 1992].