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Decimetre and infrared radiation of the lower ionosphere during solar activity increase
- Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics RAS, Russia
During geomagnetic disturbances a considerable change of electron
temperature Te from media media temperature Ts, i.e.
Te<<Ts occurs in E- and D-layers of the ionosphere. In the result
a two-temperature weakly ionized recombinational plasma, the parameters of
which are quite reliably determined on the basis of direct satellite
measurements, is fixed. Since the frequency of electron collisions with
media neutral particle is 1012- 1014 c-1, two local
energy distributions of atom and molecule discrete states are formed. The
first one (with Te temperature) corresponds to highly excited
Rydberg states, higher than some energy E*. It is determined from
the minimum condition of quenching rate constant due to transition to the
lower state. The second one (with Ts media temperature) refers to
low state. The bottleneck location is determined from the minimum
condition of quenching rate constant due to transition to the lower state.
The paper considers the main mechanisms of filling and quenching of
Rydberg states in recombinational two-temperature plasma. The most
important is the process of l-mixing which cause formation of
orbitally degenerated quasi-molecules A**N2 and A**O2.
Filling of Rydberg states of quasi-molecules depend on the concentration
of media, flux and temperature of electrons. A spectrum of decimeter range
incoherent radiation is considered for the transition between split levels
of these quasi-molecules. I was shown that it is inhomogeneous and
contains three frequency ranges in which considerable decrease of
radiation intensity occurs. The physical reason for the formation of these
ranges is determined by quasi-molecule spectrum shift, which contain
unexcited molecules N2 и O2. Formation of Rydberg
quasi-molecules is accompanied by intensive super-background infrared
radiation, the spectrum of which may be used to recover layer distribution
of Rydberg particle filling in atmosphere D- and E- layers.