Electron transport coefficients in molecular and atomic plasmas with account for inelastic collisions

摘要

We present the analysis of electron transport processes in partially ionized plasmas with account for electron inelastic collisions with atoms and molecules leading to excitation of their internal degrees of freedom. The full set of scalar, vector and tensorial transport equations for electrons is obtained and the expressions for electron transport coefficients such as the viscosity, thermal and electrical conductivity coefficients and the coefficient of electron inelastic losses are derived using the generalized moment method. Special attention is paid to analysis of electron scalar transport properties and the expressions for the difference between the electron and heavy particles temperatures as well as nonequilibrium corrections to electron ionization/recombination rates are obtained.