On the problem of the distribution of impurity ions in the F-region of the ionosphere

One-dimensional nonisothermal diffusion in ionospheric plasma (the F-region) is considered in the stationary case. The analysis is carried out for two species of positive ions with allowance for the ionization and recombination processes and the effect of gravity. A system of two coupled equations is derived for the concentrations of the electrons and ions. A transition is made to the case when the ions which determine dissociative recombination are impurity ions. For this case criteria are presented whose fulfilment causes the distribution that has been found to coincide with that obtained by Mange 9] without allowance for photochemical processes.