An auroral source of hot oxygen in the geocorona

Physics – Plasma Physics

Scientific paper

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Atmospheric Composition And Structure: Airglow And Aurora, Magnetospheric Physics: Energetic Particles: Precipitating, Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets: Aurorae And Airglow, Space Plasma Physics: Kinetic And Mhd Theory

Scientific paper

The high-energy proton-hydrogen (H+/H) beam associated with proton auroral precipitation transfers momentum in elastic and inelastic collisions with ambient thermal atomic oxygen in the high latitude thermosphere. This process provides a localized novel source of hot oxygen atoms in addition to exothermic photochemistry, charge exchange and momentum transfer from O+ ion precipitation and charge exchange with accelerated ionospheric O+ ions. We suggest that this source contributes to the population of the hot oxygen geocorona and to the flux of escaping oxygen atoms. For an incident proton energy flux of 1 mW m-2 and a mean energy Emean ~ 5 keV, we calculate a density of hot oxygen atoms with energy above 1 eV of 2.0 × 103 cm-3 and a mean kinetic energy of about 3.5 eV at 700 km. The total upward flux of hot oxygen atoms with energies higher 1 eV is estimated as 3.5 × 108 cm-2 s-1.

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