Temperature-Dependent Vibrational Relaxation of NO(v=1) by O Atoms

Details Temperature-Dependent Vibrational Relaxation of NO(v=1) by O Atoms Temperature-Dependent Vibrational Relaxation of NO(v=1) by O Atoms

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufmsa41b0727h&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #SA41B-0727

Physics

0310 Airglow And Aurora, 0355 Thermosphere: Composition And Chemistry

Scientific paper

For altitudes above about 80 km, oxygen molecules are increasingly dissociated by solar VUV absorption, and O atoms, together with O2 and N2, become a principal constituent of the atmosphere. Collisions of O with ground vibrational state NO efficiently excite NO(v=1), cooling the upper atmosphere by converting a portion of the ambient kinetic energy into 5.3-μ m IR emission which escapes into space. In recent years our group has worked to better characterize the vibrational energy transfer (VET) efficiencies for the NO(v)-O system. In our experiments vibrational relaxation rates are measured; they can be related to the corresponding uppumping rates through detailed balance. The experiment employs a cw microwave source to form O atoms, combined with photolysis of a trace amount of added NO2 to produce vibrationally excited NO. A double-jacketed quartz injector allows the introduction of O and NO2 into the reaction volume while minimizing wall-induced recombination and thermal decomposition, respectively. Oxygen atoms are detected through two-photon laser-induced fluorescence, cross-calibrated against a normalized O-atom signal resulting from photolysis of a known concentration of NO2. The experiment has been used to perform updated 295 K measurements for NO(v=1,2)-O relaxation, and 295-825 K measurements for NO(v=1)-O relaxation. A modest temperature dependence is observed. The variable temperature measurements provide key information for the accurate modeling of the lower thermospheric energy budget and IR radiant intensities. We also present associated quasiclassical trajectory calculations and TIME-GCM predictions of atmospheric temperature and density.

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