Theory of electron mobility in dense gases

Abstract

A new extended theory of electron transport in dense gases is presented. It is shown that positive and negative density effects can be explained in terms of a single unifying theory. The agreement between theory and experiment is extremely good over a wide range of pressure and temperature in gases with a negative effect, such as He and ${\mathrm{H}}_2$. Some further improvements of the theory in gases with elevated polarizability seem to be necessary for a better quantitative agreement with experimental data, even if the agreement in Ar makes us confident that the proposed theoretical approach can be correct. In the light of our unifying theory, previous theoretical models are analyzed and it is shown that almost all can be obtained under special conditions.