Coulomb collisions in the Boltzmann equation for electrons in low-temperature gas discharge plasmas

Abstract

This paper investigates the effects of electron-electron and electron-ion Coulomb collisions on the electron distribution function and transport coefficients obtained from the Boltzmann equation for simple dc gas discharge conditions. Expressions are provided for the full Coulomb collision terms acting on both the isotropic and anisotropic parts of the electron distribution function, which are then incorporated in the freeware Boltzmann equation solver BOLSIG+. Different Coulomb collision effects are demonstrated and discussed on the basis of BOLSIG+ results for argon gas. It is shown that the anisotropic part of the electron-electron collision term, neglected in previous work, can in certain cases have a large effect on the electron mobility and is essential when describing the transition towards the Coulomb-collision dominated regime characterized by Spitzer transport coefficients. Finally, a brief overview is presented of the discharge conditions for which different Coulomb collision effects occur in different gases.