Electron Impact Excitation of Atmospheric Species
POSTER
Abstract
Electron collisions with neutral molecular targets, such as O$_{2}$, H$_{2}$, and N$_{2}$, have been investigated. Resulting fluorescence was probed using various monochromator-detector combinations. Line and band intensities were investigated as a function of wavelength and incident electron energy. The emission cross sections for these atmospheric species will be presented. In the case of O$_{2}$, previous values in the literature, such as [J.M. Ajello and B. Franklin, J. Chem. Phys. \textbf{82}, 2519 (1985); O. Wilhelmi and K.-H. Schartner, Eur. Phys. J. D \textbf{11}, 79 (2000)], demonstrated significant discrepancies and provided a strong impetus for this work. The present results are compared to available cross sections.
*This work was performed at JPL, Caltech, under a contract with NASA with support through the PATM program. This research was performed while CPM and JWMcC held NASA Fellowships at JPL.