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| Titel |
Laboratory Studies of O2 Excited States Relevant to the CO2 Planets: The O2 c-a Emission in the Nightglow of Venus |
| VerfasserIn |
Konstantinos S. Kalogerakis, Oleg Kostko, Kate Storey-Fisher |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250090583
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-4837.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Knowledge of the details relevant to the production of excited O2 is critical for the study and
modeling of composition, energy transfer, airglow, and transport dynamics in CO2 planetary
atmospheres. Significant gaps and uncertainties exist in our understanding of the above
processes, and often the relevant input from laboratory measurements is missing or
outdated.
We are performing laser-based laboratory experiments to investigate the O-atom
three-body recombination responsible for the generation of oxygen airglow in the upper
atmosphere of Venus and Mars. In the laboratory, an ultraviolet light pulse from a laser
photoinitiates O-atom recombination in a CO2 environment. Spectroscopic techniques are
used to probe the excited O2 molecules produced following recombination and subsequent
relaxation in CO2. Our recent results indicate that the O2 c-a emission is strongly enhanced
by collisions with CO2 and can even exceed the O2 c-X Herzberg II emission intensity at
sufficiently high CO2 pressures.
This work is supported by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Planetary Astronomy
Program under grant AST-1109372. K. Storey-Fisher participated in a Research Experiences
for Undergraduates (REU) site at SRI International, co-funded by the Division of Physics of
the NSF and the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program
(PHY-1002892). |
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