Temporal relaxation of electrons in multi-term approximation
- Institut fuer Niedertemperatur-Plasmaphysik, Greifswald (Germany)
The study of the temporal relaxation of energetic electrons in weakly ionized, spatially homogeneous, collision dominated plasmas under the action of an electric field constitutes a topic of widespread interest (e.g. problems of plasma light sources, gas laser physics, swarm techniques, after-glow decay). Starting point for the electron kinetic investigations is the nonstationary Boltzmann equation. When choosing a fixed direction of the electric field, usually the solution of this electron kinetic equation is based on the Legendre polynomial expansion of the velocity distribution function leading to a hierarchy of partial differential equations. Conventionally this expansion is truncated after two terms (two-term approximation of the velocity distribution) and a quasi-stationary treatment of the distribution anisotropy is adopted. These two approximations are almost generally used in investigations of the temporal relaxation of electrons in collision dominated, weakly ionized plasmas. However, this approach is incorrect in several cases of practical interest. Based upon recent studies of the electron relaxation a new and very efficient technique for the solution of the electron Boltzmann equation in strict nonstationary multi-term approximation has been developed. First results on the electron relaxation in a time-independent electric field for a model gas plasma using this new approach have already been presented in. This paper reports results for the temporal relaxation of electrons in various real inert and molecular gas plasmas.
- OSTI ID:
- 212773
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950749-; TRN: 96:009940
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 22. international conference on phenomena in ionized gases, Hoboken, NJ (United States), 31 Jul - 4 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of XXII International conference on phenomena in ionized gases. Contributed papers 2; Becker, K.H.; Carr, W.E.; Kunhardt, E.E. [eds.]; PB: 226 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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