MICROWAVE DETERMINATION OF AFTERGLOW TEMPERATURES AND ELECTRON COLLISION PARAMETERS IN NITROGEN AND OXYGEN

摘要

The work performed under contract AF 61(052)-39 on the microwave determination of afterglow radiation temperatures, electron collision frequencies and fractional energy losses per collision in nitrogen and in oxygen is described. These determinations are based on measurements of the plasma conductivity and noise emission in a waveguide and on the variations of these quantities when additional microwave signals, capable to increase the electron energies, are sent through the plasma. A transverse static magnetic field, perpendicular to the electric field in the waveguide, is also used in some experiment in order to increase plasma conductivity and noise emissivity.nIn the Report the method, the computation formulas and the experimental techniques are discussed in details. The performed experiments and the results are reported and compared with other authors results;in most cases the agreement is quite satisfactory.