Spectra of small‐scale sprite structures, downward and upward propagating streamers, glow, and beads, were recorded with a slitless spectrograph at 10,000 frames per second (fps) from aircraft missions in 2009 and 2013. The spectra are dominated by emissions from molecular nitrogen, the first positive band in the red, and in the blue the second positive band plus the first negative band of molecular nitrogen ions. The excitation threshold for the blue emissions is higher than for the red emissions, so the blue/red ratio can, in principle, be used as a proxy for the electron energy leading to the emissions. We extracted for analysis time series of spectra from 11 sprites: 18 time series from downward propagating streamers, 6 from upward propagating streamers, 14 from glow, and 12 from beads. The total number of spectra in the 50 time series is 953. Blue emissions are almost exclusively associated with streamers indicating the more energetic nature of streamers compared with glow and beads. Both downward and upward propagating streamers start and end with low blue emissions indicating time variations in the associated processes. Because the red and blue nitrogen emissions are significantly affected by quenching, which is altitude dependent, and we do not have sufficiently accurate altitudes, the observed spectral blue/red ratios cannot be directly applied to sprite models.

中文翻译：

---

以10,000 fps观测的小尺寸Sprite功能的光谱

在2009年和2013年的飞行任务中，使用无缝光谱仪以10,000帧/秒（fps）的速度记录了小型精灵结构，向下和向上传播的飘带，辉光和珠子的光谱。光谱主要由分子氮发射，红色为第一个正带，蓝色为第二个正带，再加上分子氮离子的第一个负带。蓝色发射的激发阈值高于红色发射的激发阈值，因此，原则上，蓝色/红色比可以用作导致发射的电子能量的替代。我们从11个精灵中提取了光谱的时间序列：从向下传播的彩带中提取了18个时间序列，从向上传播的彩带中提取了6个时间序列，从辉光中提取了14个时间序列，从珠子中提取了12个时间序列。50个时间序列中的光谱总数为953。蓝色发射几乎只与彩带有关，这表明彩带与辉光和珠子相比具有更高的能量。向下和向上传播的拖缆都以低蓝光发射开始和结束，表明相关过程中的时间变化。由于淬灭会严重影响红色和蓝色氮的排放，淬火是高度依赖性的，并且我们没有足够准确的海拔高度，因此观察到的光谱蓝/红比不能直接应用于子画面模型。