Chemistry of Atmospheric Excitation Processes

Abstract : We present here the findings of several investigations into the sources and magnitudes for excitation and collisional processes giving rise to atmospheric signatures from vibrationally and rotational excited molecular states including: vibrational energy transfer from nitrogen to CO2, production processes for high levels of NO(v, J), the NO dipole moment (including centrifugal distortion) and infrared transition strengths, relaxation mechanisms for relaxation of high rotational states of vibrationally excited OH, the role of translational energy in increasing the reaction cross-section and product molecule excitation for nitrogen atoms to produce NO and for atomic oxygen collisions with hydrocarbon molecules. We also present data acquired using a hyperspectral imager to extract excited molecular emissions from structured scenes, and report on refurbishment activities on the COCHISE cryogenic facility.