Cassini UVIS Observations of Titan Ultraviolet Airglow Spectra with Laboratory Modeling from Electron- and Proton-Excited N2 Emission Studies

Details Cassini UVIS Observations of Titan Ultraviolet Airglow Spectra with Laboratory Modeling from Electron- and Proton-Excited N2 Emission Studies Cassini UVIS Observations of Titan Ultraviolet Airglow Spectra with Laboratory Modeling from Electron- and Proton-Excited N2 Emission Studies

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufmsa11a..05a&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #SA11A-05

Physics

Space Physics

[0310] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Airglow And Aurora, [6009] Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies / Aurorae, Airglow, And X-Ray Emission, [6281] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Titan

Scientific paper

Joseph M. Ajello, Robert A. West, Rao S. Mangina Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 Charles P. Malone Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 & Department of Physics, California State University, Fullerton, CA 92834 Michael H. Stevens Space Science Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375 Jacques Gustin Laboratoire de Physique Atmosphérique et Planétaire, Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium A. Ian F. Stewart, Larry W. Esposito, William E. McClintock, Gregory M. Holsclaw Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303 E. Todd Bradley Department of Physics, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816 The Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed photon emissions of Titan's day and night limb-airglow and disk-airglow on multiple occasions, including three eclipse observations from 2009 through 2010. The 77 airglow observations analyzed in this paper show EUV (600-1150 Å) and FUV (1150-1900 Å) atomic multiplet lines and band emissions (lifetimes less than ~100 μs), including the Lyman-Birge-Hopfield (LBH) band system, arising from photoelectron induced fluorescence and solar photo-fragmentation of molecular nitrogen (N2). The altitude of peak UV emission on the limb of Titan during daylight occurred inside the thermosphere/ionosphere (near 1000 km altitude). However, at night on the limb, the same emission features, but much weaker in intensity, arise in the lower atmosphere below 1000 km (lower thermosphere, mesosphere, haze layer) extending downwards to near the surface at ~300 km, possibly resulting from proton- and/or heavier ion-induced emissions as well as secondary-electron-induced emissions. The eclipse observations are unique. UV emissions were observed during only one of the three eclipse events, and no Vegard-Kaplan (VK) or LBH emissions were seen. Through regression analysis using laboratory spectra, we have analyzed the intensity and identified each spectral feature from the limb or disk emission spectrum. The strongest dipole-allowed transitions of N2 occur in the EUV. The electronic transitions proceed from the X 1Σg+ ground-state to about seven closely spaced (~12-15 eV) Rydberg-valence (RV) states, which are the source of the molecular emissions in the EUV observed by spacecraft and have recently been studied in our laboratory at medium-to-high spectral resolution (delta-λ = 0.1 Å FWHM). Three of these RV states (b 1Πu, b' 1Σu+, and c4' 1Σu+) are highly-perturbed, weakly-to-strongly predissociated, and have significant emission cross sections, which will be summarized in this paper. We will also discuss our recently published proton and electron impact emission cross sections for the LBH (a 1Πg - X 1Σg+) band system of N2, and their significance to the modeling of the day and night FUV spectra of the atmospheres of Earth and Titan.

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