Advances in Space Research, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 47-50, 2000

Effective Recombination Coefficient in the Lower Ionosphere During Bursts of Auroral Electrons

Th. Ulich¹, E. Turunen¹, T. Nygrén²

¹Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, Sodankylä, Finland,
²Dept of Physical Sciences, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.

Abstract

Sudden ionospheric electron density increases, associated with impulsive electron precipitation bursts and followed by decays, are observed by the EISCAT incoherent scatter radar. The effective recombination coefficient and the ratio of the NO⁺ and O₂⁺ ion concentrations are estimated from the variations by use of the Sodankylä Ion Chemistry model. Recombination coefficients obtained previously from the same data by a simpler approach are compared with the present results.

© 1999 by COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Further electronic publication not allowed.