A Collisional-Energy-Cascade Model for Nonthermal Velocity Distributions of Neutral Atoms in Plasmas

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1. Verfasser: Fujii, Keisuke
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2022
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author Fujii, Keisuke
author_facet Fujii, Keisuke
contents Nonthermal velocity distributions with much greater tails than the Maxwellian have been observed for radical atoms in plasmas for a long time. Historically, such velocity distributions have been modeled by a two-temperature Maxwell distribution. In this paper, I propose a model based on collisional energy cascade, which has been studied in the field of granular materials. In the collisional energy cascade, a particle ensemble undergoes energy input at the high-energy region, entropy production by elastic collisions among particles, and energy dissipation. For radical atoms, energy input may be caused by the Franck-Condon energy of molecular dissociation or charge-exchange collision with hot ions, and the input energy is eventually dissipated by collisions with the walls. I show that the steady-state velocity distribution in the collisional energy cascade is approximated by the generalized Mittag-Leffler distribution, which is a one-parameter extension of the Maxwell distribution. This parameter indicates the degree of the nonthermality and is related to the relative importance of energy dissipation over entropy production. This model is compared with a direct molecular dynamics simulation for a simplified gaseous system with energy input and dissipative wall collisions, as well as some experimentally observed velocity distributions of light radicals in plasmas.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2210_06938
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Collisional-Energy-Cascade Model for Nonthermal Velocity Distributions of Neutral Atoms in Plasmas
Fujii, Keisuke
Plasma Physics
Statistical Mechanics
Nonthermal velocity distributions with much greater tails than the Maxwellian have been observed for radical atoms in plasmas for a long time. Historically, such velocity distributions have been modeled by a two-temperature Maxwell distribution. In this paper, I propose a model based on collisional energy cascade, which has been studied in the field of granular materials. In the collisional energy cascade, a particle ensemble undergoes energy input at the high-energy region, entropy production by elastic collisions among particles, and energy dissipation. For radical atoms, energy input may be caused by the Franck-Condon energy of molecular dissociation or charge-exchange collision with hot ions, and the input energy is eventually dissipated by collisions with the walls. I show that the steady-state velocity distribution in the collisional energy cascade is approximated by the generalized Mittag-Leffler distribution, which is a one-parameter extension of the Maxwell distribution. This parameter indicates the degree of the nonthermality and is related to the relative importance of energy dissipation over entropy production. This model is compared with a direct molecular dynamics simulation for a simplified gaseous system with energy input and dissipative wall collisions, as well as some experimentally observed velocity distributions of light radicals in plasmas.
title A Collisional-Energy-Cascade Model for Nonthermal Velocity Distributions of Neutral Atoms in Plasmas
topic Plasma Physics
Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.06938