Abstract:
The role of metastable ionospheric components of oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules is considered for F2-region ionospheric processes. The main attention was paid to investigation of the processes with oscillatory excited state of the nitrogen molecules $N_2^{(v)}$. The density calculation of this component was made for the ten oscillating levels ($v=1,\dots,10$), using by the time-depended diffuse equation. Bolltzmann distribution was not taking into account. The role of diffusive and photochemical processes in $N_2^{(v)}$ dynamics was discussed. The calculation was made on a base of ionosphere-plazmasphere model field tube with possibility to calculate time-altitude distributions of main ionospheric ions, including ions excited states. In this paper we shall describe our calculations of the following metastable species: $O(^1D)$,
$O(^1S)$, $O^+(^2D)$, $N(^2D)$, $N(^2P)$ and vibrationally excited states of $N_2^{(v)}$.