THE SCATTERING RATE OF SOLAR 834-A RADIATION BY MAGNETOSPHERIC O+ AND O++

Several recent proposals to image sunlit magnetospheric O+ have been difficult to assess because of the lack of detailed knowledge of the solar spectrum at 834 Å. An NRL solar spectrograph flown on a sounding rocket in 1962 actually had sufficient resolving power to allow the calculation of scattering rates. Using these solar data, examples of scattering rates for a range of thermal and bulk velocities are presented for both O+ and O++, and the effects of ionospheric albedo are estimated. The scattering rates are significantly lower than previously estimated for hot or moving plasma and exhibit substantial structure. Copyright 1990 by the American Geophysical Union.