Discussion of paper by R. C. Whitten, I. G. Poppoff, R. S. Edmonds, and W. W. Berning, ‘Effective recombination coefficients in the lower ionosphere’

Abstract

Whitten et al. [1965] (hereafter referred to as WPEB) recently inferred values of certain recombination coefficients from an experiment carried out during one of the high-altitude nuclear tests in 1962. In the experiment, measurements of the angular β-ray energy flux, dF/dΩ, were made from a rocket that also carried a phase-coherent three-frequency beacon. From the measured dF/dΩ, and a theoretical model for the β-ray energy spectrum at the detector, WPEB infer an electron production rate, q, using their equation 6. From the dispersive Doppler measurements of total electron content between beacon and receiver, with the assumption that horizontal gradients and time dependence of the electron number density are negligible, WPEB infer the electron number density at the rocket position, Ne.