Keywords

LBH, Space Physics, UV, thermosphere, Dayglow, Airglow

Abstract

Ultraviolet (UV) spectra obtained from Earth’s dayglow contain important information for understanding the thermosphere, and the N2 Lyman-Birge-Hopfield (LBH) bands are possibly the most useful emission. To be useful, a thorough understanding of how the LBH band emission varies with altitude and latitude is essential to present and future use of this emission by space-based remote sensors. Excited by photoelectron impact on N2 leading to transitions from the a 1Πg state to the ground state, the LBH emissions radiate between 1270 and 2400 Å. In addition to being populated by electron impact excitation, the a 1Πg state is populated by radiative and collisional cascading from adjacent singlet states a’ 1Σ−u, and w 1∆u (Eastes, 2000). Ultimately, the intensity is most dependent on low energy electron flux (Ajello and Shemansky, 1985; Meier, 1991) because that is where the electron impact scattering cross sections of the singlet states are the largest. This dissertation presents modeled LBH profiles produced using the Intrasystem Cascade Excitation (ICE) model (Eastes, 2000) with photoelectron fluxes calculated using the Continuous Slowing Down (CSD) model (Jasperse, 1976). Both of these models implement the Mass Spectrometer and Incoherent Scatter (MSIS) to model an atmosphere. Modeled emissions are compared against observations by the High resolution Ionospheric and Thermospheric Spectrograph (HITS) on the Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (ARGOS). This dissertation will investigate the LBH emissions in detail and ultimately use them for remote sensing of thermospheric temperatures.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2007

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Eastes, Richard

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Sciences

Department

Physics

Degree Program

Physics

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0001986

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0001986

Language

English

Release Date

June 2008

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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