Violating the free-electrons gas spectrum of noble gases by adding the electropositive and electronegative gases

Abstract

Each gas can be regarded as a mixture of its neutral constitutive components, ionic gas and free electrons. Investigations showed1, in case of noble gases(of a low ionization degree), that the free-electrons gas spectrum is of the Maxwell's type regardless of whether the gas is found in the electric field or not. This characteristic of free-electrons gas spectrum of noble gases is explained with both the elastic collision processes' and the absence of Coulomb's electron-electron interaction between free electrons and neutral gas atoms. Violation of the Maxwell's free-electrons gas spectrum can be expected in mixtures of noble gases with the electropositive gases due to the occurrence of non-elastic collisions accompanied with the excitation of vibrational and rotational quantum-mechanic states of the molecules of the added gas. If the added molecular gas is electronegative, the Maxwell's free-electrons gas spectrum is violated through the electron capture process, which is followed by negative ions formation. These two mutually independent mechanisms of violating the Maxwell's free-electrons gas spectrum shape act in different ways and in different energy ranges. The aim of this paper is to determine both theoretically and experimentally the maximal percentage share of the added electropositive or electronegative molecular gases for which the Maxwell's free-electrons spectrum model can stand in calculating the statistical parameters of electric discharge.