Abstract
The electron energy distribution has been calculated as a function of both position and time for an electron swarm travelling across a uniform electric field discharge gap. From those distributions, integral equations have been developed for the discharge parameters representing ionization, drift velocity and diffusion and those lead to an alternative form for the drift and diffusion equation. The magnitude of the discharge parameters have been calculated for electron swarms in molecular hydrogen for 10 < E/p0 < 120 v cm-1 torr-1. A comparison with the values calculated from the usual form of the integrals for these discharge parameters, shows that although the mean energy and rate of ionization are the same, the drift velocity is larger and the diffusion coefficient now behave a as a tensor.