in synthetic air are nearly equal to those measured in pure O 2 , suggesting that N 2 collider does not significantly affect the relaxation pathways leading to the production of the two metastable species. However, at short experimental times the buildup of the O 2 (a 1 D g , u = 0) population is considerably slower in synthetic air than in O 2 .
Introduction[2] In the upper atmospheres of the Earth and Venus oxygen atoms recombine via a three-body process to produce a variety of excited species of molecular oxygen. As a result, emissions from the five low-lying excited electronic states (A Atmospheric bands, which are among the strongest components of the nightglow. The detailed information on the yields of these two species from three-body recombination of oxygen atoms is important for modeling of the observed relative and absolute nightglow emission intensities. In particular, production pathways and the effects of the collisional environment (i.e., type and pressure of the collider) on these yields must be established.[3] An obvious mechanism for production of O 2 (a 1In the atmosphere, M is primarily O 2 /N 2 , although in principle the third body can be a third oxygen atom, as initially proposed by Chapman