Electron Transport in a Dilute Weakly Ionized Gas Application to a Model Ionosphere.

摘要

The author presents a kinetic model for the electron distribution function in micro-space in a dilute,nonuniform,weakly ionized gas. The model includes photoproduction of electron-ion pairs,electron-ion recombination,and elastic,inelastic,and ionizing electron-neutral collisions. Under special conditions exact solutions are found for the steady-state electron velocity spectrum in a uniform,infinite medium for a delta-function photon energy source,and for an exponentially decreasing photon energy source. Also presented is a general method for finding the electron distribution function in a plane-parallel medium where the neutral gas density varies exponentially with position. The method is applied to give an approximation to the electron-ion concentration,the electron-ion drift velocity,and the electron temperature for a model ionosphere at altitudes where the assumption of weak ionization is valid. (Author)