Implications of Electron Detachment in Associative Collisions of Atomic Oxygen Anion with Molecular Nitrogen for Modeling of Transient Luminous Events

Electron detachment from O⁻ is important for understanding of lightning-induced upper atmospheric discharges. Contrary to previous studies, Rayment and Moruzzi (1978) (RM78) argue that the associative detachment reaction of O⁻ with N₂ proceeds with N₂ in its ground state. Here, we analyze the experimental setup in RM78 and demonstrate that vibrationally excited N₂ may have in fact contaminated the results, the theoretical approach in RM78 requires corrections, and the rate calculations provided in RM78 are inconsistent. As the vibrational temperature of N₂ remains relatively low in the initial stages of gas discharges in air, i.e., streamer formation, we conclude that if in fact vibrationally excited N₂ is required for the O⁻ + N₂ → N₂O + e reaction to proceed, the process will happen only in later stages of the discharge, e.g., during streamer to leader transition. Controlled experiments are required to reconcile the literature on the reaction of O⁻ with ground state N₂.