Electron cooling in the F-2 region at low and mid latitudes

Abstract

Experimentally observed electron concentration, electron temperature, and ion temperature profiles, for ionospheric conditions corresponding to low and middle latitudes, are used to calculate the electron cooling rates arising from the two major cooling mechanisms in the F2 region (electron-ion collisions and electron impact induced transitions). When electron concentration is low, the cooling due to fine structure excitation of atomic oxygen dominates, and conversely, when electron concentration is high, the cooling due to oxygen ions dominates. For midlatitudes, the electron concentration rarely exceeds 5 × 10 to the 5th power cu cm and so for these latitudes the dominant cooling mechanism is the fine structure excitation of atomic oxygen.