Production of Energetic Atoms by Multiple Collisions

Abstract

Summary The production of energetic atoms in the epithermal energy region by a high-energy atomic beam is considered by using the Boltzmann equation. Solutions of the Boltzmann equation show that numerous epithermal atoms may be generated as a result of scattering collisions in which an energetic atom transfers kinetic energy to a struck atom. For a system in which all the reactive and non-reactive cross sections have the same energy dependence and in which the thermal motion of the struck atoms can be neglected, numerical results obtained from a stochastic computer program confirm the analytical results for the asymptotic region and give detailed information on the energy dependence of the collision density for the non-asymptotic region near the source. Numerical calculations of reaction yields for a gaseous system containing two atomic species are also presented.