Patrones de dispersión de electrones acelerados entre dos placas cargadas en presencia de oxígeno y nitrógeno

Abstract

The dispersion of electrons accelerated by an electric field through a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, with relative concentrations of 0.22 and 0.78 respectively, was studied using computer simulations. The electron was accelerated by an electric field between 1x102 and 3x106 V/m through a medium with pressures between 3.8 and 760 mmHg. These simulations considered that the electrons experience random collisions. In turn, the outcome of each collision was determined randomly considering the Itikawa’s experimental cross-sections. The electrons dispersion was analyzed using cumulative distribution functions. The deviations produced by the medium were quantified by the radius that corresponds to the 50% of cumulative distribution (r0.5). It was found that there are potential relations involving the mean free time and the characteristic radius (r0.5) with pressure and electric field. However, these tendencies show discontinuities between 1x106 and 3x106 V/m fields Ionizations are found only at these electric fields. These results contribute to understand the behavior of electron inception associated to air electric breakdown.