COLLISIONAL-RADIATIVE ELECTRON-ION RECOMBINATION RATE IN RARE-GAS PLASMAS

The minimum de-excitation rate of a recombining electron in the atom is calculated by using Gryzinski's formulation for the electron-atom collision process and Bates and Damgaard's Coulomb approximation for the radiative transition probability. The calculated minimum rate is taken to be the electron-ion collisional-radiative recombination rate. The electron-ion recombination rates are measured in a decaying plasma produced by a transient discharge. The comparison between the theoretical calculations and experimental results for five rare-gas (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe) plasmas is presented.