Observation of O+ (4P-4D0) lines in electron aurora over Svalbard

• Main Authors: Ivchenko, N., Rees, M., Lanchester, B., Lummerzheim, D., Galand, M., Throp, K., Furniss, I.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Norway; Svalbard
• Online Access: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/9535/

This work reports on observations of O+ lines in aurora over Svalbard, Norway. The Spectrographic Imaging Facility measures auroral spectra in three wavelength intervals (H, N+2 1N(0,2) and N+2 1N(1,3)). The oxygen ion 4P-4D0 multiplet (4639–4696 A° ) is blended with the N+2 1N(1,3) band. It is found that in electron aurora, the brightness of this multiplet, is on average, about 0.1 of the N+2 1N(0,2) total brightness. A joint optical and incoherent scatter radar study of an electron aurora event shows that the ratio is enhanced when the ionisation in the upper E-layer (140–190 km) is significant with respect to the E-layer peak below 130 km. Rayed arcs were observed on one such occasion, whereas on other occasions the auroral intensity was below the threshold of the imager. A one-dimensional electron transport model is used to estimate the cross section for production of the multiplet in electron collisions, yielding 0.18×10−18 cm2.