Emission and shock visualization in nonequilibrium nitrogen afterglow plasma

Kinetic modeling of propagating and stationary normal shocks in nonequilibrium nitrogen afterglow plasma is used to simulate the results of shock emission measurements in nitrogen afterglow. Emission intensity overshoot behind the shock predicted by the model is in satisfactory agreement with the experimental results and is consistent with previous analytic estimates. The model demonstrates that the first and the second positive band emission overshoot behind the shock are produced by energy transfer processes among the triplet electronic states of nitrogen generated in the electric discharge. On the other hand, charge separation and ambipolar electric field produced across the shock layer do not result in electron heating and additional electron impact excitation of electronic states. The calculations show that emission overshoot makes possible accurate detection of a stationary shock layer in supersonic flowing afterglow experiments. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.