Impact of the Vibrationally Excited States on the Macroscopic Behaviour of the Band‐like Electron Beam Discharge Plasma in H/H2‐Mixture

Abstract

The investigation of the impact of the vibrationally excited molecules in the electronic ground state was performed by simultaneously solving a balance equation system for the main charge carriers, the H atoms, the metastable H atoms, the H₂ molecules in the different vibrational states and for the power transfer of the electrons in the beam discharge mixture plasma. The balance equations for the vibrational states include in particular one‐quantum step excitation and deexcitation, electronic excitation, dissociation and ionization from each vibrational level in electron collisions as well as the finite life time of these states because of the gas transfer through the band‐like plasma. A main finding is that due to the additional impact of vibrationally excited molecules there is a marked enhancement of the resulting dissociation and ionization degree in the beam discharge plasma at medium power input from the turbulent electric field. For discharge parameters of practical interest the ionization and dissociation budget, the population of the vibrational states, the different energy dissipation processes and the energy pumping into the ladder of the vibrational states were calculated and discussed in detail.