METHOD FOR INCLUDING ELECTRON-ELECTRON COLLISIONS IN MONTE-CARLO SIMULATIONS OF ELECTRON SWARMS IN PARTIALLY IONIZED-GASES

A method whereby electron-electron collisions can be included in Monte Carlo simulations of electron swarms in low-temperature partially ionized plasmas is presented. In this method, electron-electron (e-e) collisions are treated as being functionally equivalent to electronneutral-species collisions. In doing so, individual pseudoelectron particles in the simulation collide with an energy-resolved electron fluid. Energy is exchanged with this fluid using the Coulomb cross section. When e-e collisions dominate, the electron-energy distribution evolves to being Maxwellian. The method is made computationally tractable by using a modified null-cross-section technique that eliminates the need for recalculating collision probabilities as the electron-energy distribution evolves. © 1990 The American Physical Society.