On the determination of particle concentrations in multitemperature plasmas

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Abstract
The use of the multitemperature Saha equation (MSE) of Prigogine1 and Patapov2 for calculating particle concentrations in plasmas is shown to be an invalid procedure. Errors greater than one order of magnitude in the electron density in high-pressure argon and nitrogen electric arc plasmas can be easily incurred by using the multitemperature Saha equation. The alternative kinetic method for calculating concentrations is shown to be based on firm concepts. Simpliying procedures and computational techniques for calculating concentrations with the kinetic method are illustrated with examples.