On the Rate Coefficient of the N(2D)+O2 Reaction in the Terrestrial Thermosphere

Details On the Rate Coefficient of the N(2D)+O2 Reaction in the Terrestrial Thermosphere On the Rate Coefficient of the N(2D)+O2 Reaction in the Terrestrial Thermosphere

May 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusmsa32a..06d&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #SA32A-06

Physics

0310 Airglow And Aurora, 0317 Chemical Kinetic And Photochemical Properties, 0355 Thermosphere: Composition And Chemistry

Scientific paper

It was shown earlier that the reaction of N(2D) atoms with O2 is the dominant mechanism for the production of NO in the aurorally dosed nocturnal and, below about 130 km altitude, the daylit terrestrial thermosphere. In contrast to the N(4S)+O2 reaction, which requires the reactants to have about 0.3 eV of activation energy (in the center-of-mass frame) to proceed, the N(2D)+O2 reaction proceeds without an energy barrier. The translational energy of ambient N(2D) atoms can not usually be described by a Maxwell-Boltzmann energy distribution function (EDF). Unlike the ground state N(4S) atoms EDF, because of the significantly larger ratio of hot/thermal N(2D) atoms, the chance of the N(2D) EDF being approximated by a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution at the ambient temperature is even more remote. In this talk we calculate the rate coefficient of the N(2D)+O2 reaction by solving the Boltzmann equation for the N(2D) energy distribution function using the energy dependent reaction cross sections obtained from quasi-classical trajectories calculations on ab initio potential energy surfaces. We compare these cross sections with those obtained assuming a thermalized distribution of N(2D) atoms at the ambient temperature under diverse geophysical conditions and obtain a quantative measure of the error introduced by the universally made thermalization assumption.

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