IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v101y1980i2p491-506.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Heavy ions in light gases in an electric field

Author

Listed:
  • Ferrari, L.

Abstract

The limits of validity of the Kihara solution of the Boltzmann equation for heavy ions in light gases in an electric field are discussed. To this end the conditions are investigated for the passage from the integral Boltzmann equation to its approximate differential form whose exact solution is the Kihara distribution. It is found that, independently of the presence of an external field, only the Rayleigh condition on the mass ratio is required in the case of an ion-neutral maxwellian interaction. On the contrary, in the presence of an electric field, the main assumption allowing the above passage for any other ion-neutral interaction law implies the further condition that the square of the ratio of the ion drift speed to the thermal velocity of the neutrals cannot exceed (in order of magnitude) the neutral-particle-ion mass ratio. By a direct analysis of the ion velocity averages calculated by using the Kihara distribution, it is shown that this condition (together with Rayleigh's) constitutes also the limit of validity of the Kihara distribution in all cases of ion-neutral interaction law.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferrari, L., 1980. "Heavy ions in light gases in an electric field," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 491-506.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:101:y:1980:i:2:p:491-506
    DOI: 10.1016/0378-4371(80)90190-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0378437180901909
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/0378-4371(80)90190-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:101:y:1980:i:2:p:491-506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.