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The Electron Relaxation to Stationary States in Collision Dominated Plasmas in Molecular Gases
Author(s) -
Capitelli M.,
Gorse C.,
Wilhelm J.,
Winkler R.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
annalen der physik
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1521-3889
pISSN - 0003-3804
DOI - 10.1002/andp.19844960206
Subject(s) - excited state , relaxation (psychology) , atomic physics , plasma , electron , physics , boltzmann equation , distribution function , stationary state , collision frequency , electric field , field (mathematics) , collision , quantum mechanics , psychology , social psychology , mathematics , computer security , computer science , pure mathematics
The temporal collision dominated relaxation of electrons to new stationary states, starting from initial stationary states and due to jump‐like changes of the electric field, was studied in the plasmas of the molecular gases N 2 and CO. Numerical solving of the time dependent Boltzmann equation for the electrons yields the temporal evolution of their energy distribution function and of resulting macroscopic quantities. The varying relaxation due to different values of the field strength in the final stationary state has been investigated considering the molecules of the plasma only as vibrationally non‐excited and, in another case, including the additional impact of collisions with vibrationally excited molecules. The results obtained are discussed and, in particular, the relaxation times found for the transitions to the new stationary states are analysed on the basis of the energy transfer effectiveness by the collision processes. An approximative microphysical basis for the understanding of the main features of the relaxation in such complex molecular gas plasmas could be obtained.