Abstract
The electron concentration in the $E$ layer has been calculated as a function of height according to the theory of the pre-ionization of molecular oxygen by the sun's radiation (Nicolet) and subsequent dissociative recombination (Bates and Massey). The calculations are based on the recent work of Moses and Wu on the distribution of molecular and atomic oxygen in the atom-molecule transition region. It is shown that both the observed height and the value of the peak electron density can be accounted for satisfactorily. We also examine the photo-ionization of atomic oxygen which leads to a peak in the region of the ${F}_{1}$ layer, but it does not seem possible to explain the observed effective recombination coefficient for the ${F}_{1}$ layer on the basis of a theory involving atomic and molecular oxygen alone.
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