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Shematovich et al. 2005
Shematovich, V.I., Bisikalo, D.V. and Gérard, J.-C. (2005). An auroral source of hot oxygen in the geocorona. Geophysical Research Letters 32: doi: 10.1029/2004GL021912. issn: 0094-8276.

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.

BACKGROUND DATA FILES

Abstract

Keywords
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
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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