Research into Artificially Induced Atmospheric Disturbances

摘要

A detailed chemical kinetics model describing the interaction of an electron beamwith the atmsophere is used to investigate N(4S), N(2D) and N(2P) formation and the subsequent reaction of metastable N atoms with O2 on NO formation and emission during the EXCEDE III artificial auroral experiment. Of particular significance is the result that rotationally hot NO can be explained by the reaction of nonthermal N(4S) atoms with O2. The rate constants and vibrational distributions for rotationally hot NO are obtained from extensive quasiclassical trajectory calculations for N(4S)+O2 reaction using realistic ab initio potential energy surfaces. This analysis provides the first quantitative evidence of the importance of hyperthermal N(4S) and N(2D) atoms in the formation of vibrationally and rotationally excited NO. Excellent agreement between the chemical kinetics model developed for EXCEDE and the NO vibrational populations derived from the interferometer data is obtained under conditions of thermalization of nitrogen atoms (i.e., at 103 km under maximum dose conditions). Analysis of vibrational populations from the interferometer under other conditions indicate that hyperthermal N(2D) atoms may also pay an important role in NO formation or an additional mechanism for hot NO formation is necessary.