Laboratory Studies of Chemical Kinetic and Spectroscopic Processes Required for the Quantification of Mesospheric Sodium Nightglow and Nighttime Ozone Concentrations

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The proposed work will measure reaction rate constants, product branching ratios and spectrcospic rate parameters which must be further quantified in order to reliably model the sodium nightglow and to unequivocally utilize simultaneous measurements of sodium nightglow emissions and ground state sodium concentrations to quantify nighttime upper mesospheric ozone levels. The low temperature NaO+O(3P) reaction, a secondary source of mesospheric NaO, will also be investigated. These experimental investigations will utilize temperature variable fast flow kinetic technique and crossed molecular beam methods, both coupled to high resolution tunable laser probes for spectroscopic state identification and characterization. Their successful completion will allow a much more experimentally grounded modeling effort to quantify the mesospheric Na nightglow and more firmly anchor recent attempts to use measured nightglow levels coupled with lidar measurements of atomic sodium density to deduce nighttime concentrations of upper mesospheric O3.