RECOMBINING PROCESSES IN A STEADY PLASMA-FLOW PENETRATING INTO HYDROGEN GAS

A numerical investigation of recombining process in a high-temperature plasma flow in a quasi-steady state (electron temperature about 10 eV, electron density about 10(14) cm-3 and flow velocity about 10(6) cm s-1) was performed under gas contact cooling conditions using the collisional-radiative model, in which gas cooling is mainly due to surrounding gas particles freely coming into the plasma column. The calculation has shown that the electron temperature relaxes in accord with experimental results and also that the occurrence of the recombining region and the inverted populations almost agree with the experimental ones. Atomic processes responsible for gas cooling are discussed.