Ion Velocity Distributions in a Partially Ionized Plasma

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Calculations have been made of the steady‐state ion velocity distribution functions for a partially ionized gas which is not in thermal equilibrium. The electron and neutral gases are assumed to have Maxwellian distributions such that Te≤ Tn. The effects of ion‐electron and ion‐ion Coulomb collisions are represented by appropriate Fokker‐Planck terms, while the ion‐neutral collision term has been derived for resonance charge exchange. It is found for the case of atomic oxygen ions that little distortion of the ion distribution from Maxwellian occurs for ranges of electron and neutral temperatures and particle number densities of geophysical interest. Further, even if ion‐ion collisions are neglected, a nearly Maxwellian distribution results for steady‐state conditions.